


I’m Dead in the Water (Can’t You See, Can’t You See)

by Yukkuri



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-02
Updated: 2015-10-02
Packaged: 2018-04-24 09:18:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4913866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yukkuri/pseuds/Yukkuri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The next thing he knew: he woke up drenched in a harsh white neon light - confused and scared. He was in a small room. Baekhyun still remembered how that room smelled<br/>---stale, stench, foul, funk, vile, they were all assaulted his nostrils and his first reaction was to gag, choke, heave, until he noticed the shackles around his ankles, which was connected to a rusted metal bed post.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I’m Dead in the Water (Can’t You See, Can’t You See)

Baekhyun remembered what it felt like almost surrounded by fire.  
  
He remembered the heat - god, the heat - the excruciating pain and the scream that was ripped out of his throat.  
  
He remembered, in the midst of the cacophony of sounds, he got up noticed a small way out and ran. Embers and chunks of debris rained down on his back.  
  
He ignored the panic sounds in the back of his mind- _what about your mother? Your father?-_ and kept running.  
  
He didn’t remember what happen next.  
  
The next thing he knew: he woke up drenched in a harsh white neon light-confused and scared. He was in a small room. Baekhyun still remembered how that room smelled---stale, stench, foul, funk, vile, they were all assaulted his nostrils and his first reaction was to gag, choke, heave, until he noticed the shackles around his ankles, which was connected to a rusted metal bed post.  
  
Pressure clamped down his chest and fear washed over him.  
  
His first instinct was to struggle, to trash, but pain shot up his ankles and he noticed the skin around his ankles were rubbed raw.  Another thing he noticed was his upper body was wrapped in thick bandage.  
  
He tried to sit up but immediately decided against it when he felt the skin inside the bandage shifted and  _burned_. It was so painful tears pricked his eyes.  
  
His head swam with chaotic thoughts and fearful whispers.  
  
Through his muddy mind and bleary eyes, he surveyed the room he was in and forced-swallowed the hysterical bubble that was already on the tip of his tongue.  
  
It was all white. White and dirty. White washed wall, no window, no door or at least it didn’t look like there was a door on the wall, dusty tiles, rusty metal table, rusty metal chair, rusty-  
  
There were sounds. Footsteps.  
  
Baekhyun stiffened. His heart thudded painfully against his ribs. He counted in his head : 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8-  
  
Apparently, there was a door. There at the left side of his head.  
  
It swung open and Baekhyun jerked, it shot pain again to his bandaged skin.  
  
Three, no, four man in white coats were walking inside.  
  
“What do you want?!” the yell that was came out of his mouth sounded more like a desperate plea even to his own ears.  
  
The men didn’t answer him, only looked at him in this scrutinizing way that Baekhyun felt his skin crawl.  
  
“You are them aren’t you?! The resistance!” he yelled again. One man, dark raven hair, stepped closer to him. Baekhyun recoiled. The shackles rattled with his slight movement, the sound was jarring in the quiet room.  
  
“Calm down. Or you’re going to irritate your wounds.” The man said - voice soft and steady probably he hoped to ease Baekhyun with it. That didn’t work. Fear swarmed into his veins.  
  
“What do you want from me? I don’t have what you want!”  
  
“How do you know what we want?” the other man with skin so pale it looked translucent, asked.  
  
“The cure! You--you bloody resistance-it’s the only thing you want!” he spat. “If you think the metropolis would-“  
  
“Oh they would.” The raven haired man cut. “The metropolis’ darling. They’re going to give us plenty of money in exchange of you. Enough money to buy more weapons so we could rob every hospital in the metropolis.”  
  
“You filthy low life! You’re such a hypocrite talking big about justice here and there and yet-“  
  
The tallest man in the group, who had been hanging in the back suddenly rushed forward and in a split second had Baekhyun’s jaw grabbed harshly. His sharp nails dig into Baekhyun’s cheeks. He let out a pained gasp. “Don’t you dare talking about justice. Metropolis bastard!”  
  
“Tao.” The raven haired man warned. The man - Tao - refused to budge. He clenched Baekhyun’s jaw tighter until he whimpered. When Tao let go, Baekhyun could smell the metallic scent of blood and knew his cheeks were bleeding.  
  
“We’ll keep you here until we heard from the metropolis. If we don’t hear anything, well we don’t have a problem to treat the metropolis’ precious son just the way they treated our sons.”  
  
With that they left Baekhyun.  
  
He was shaking all over.  
  
He still remembered the fear. He still remembered how upset, angry, and confuse he was. He remembered the pain. Man, did he remember the pain.  
  
The men went to his room at least twice in a day to check on him.  
  
They would change his bandage, feed him, rubbed his ankles with some sort of ointment, but none of them gave Baekhyun what he needed.  
  
Information.  
  
They were so adamant on keeping their mouth shut. No matter how loud Baekhyun yelled, no matter how nasty his insults were, no one answered him.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
It had been 64 days since they moved him into an even smaller room.  
  
It had been 5 hours since their member - Kai, or something - dropped his tray of food through the small gap in his door. It usually consisted of one tiny loaf of bread and a cup of soup that was more water sprinkled by tiny cuts of vegetable rather than an actual soup. Or if they were slightest bit generous there would be fruit, an apple or an orange.  
  
Today was the day where they didn’t feel generous at all. Baekhyun’s lunch consisted of a tiny loaf of hard bread and two cubes of raw potato. He had nibbled the potato slowly, hoping the taste would last.  
  
His stomach had started to twist with hunger again. Baekhyun sighed.  
  
In times like this he usually started to distract his mind.  
  
He avoid to think about sensitive subjects: his home, his family, the metropolis, the plague, his school, the medal on top of the crystal cabinet in his family’s living room, or the fire. No.  
  
He instead would think about the members of the resistance. He knew some of them. The raven haired man, Kyungsoo. The angry tall one, Tao. The almost translucent one, Luhan. And there was Kai, Sehun, Chanyeol and Kris-Krit? they were his so called  _guards._  
  
He would try to decipher each one of them for fun. Like he was 98% sure that Kai had a thing for Sehun, judging from the way he always secretly ogled the other’s ass. And Tao had a serious anger management issue. Luhan was secretly pitied him, Baekhyun had to find a way to work this information for his advantage.  
  
“He refused to open up.”  
  
“I wonder what his actual plan is.”  
  
Baekhyun sat straighter. It was his favorite time of the day. When the guards would exchange their  _shift_  and used that little bit of time to gossip. It was Sehun and Chanyeol.  
  
“Everyone does.” Chanyeol sighed.  
  
“The metropolis is restless. I heard some people tried to run to the land outside the border.”  
  
What?  
  
“What? The land outside the border? It was ten thousand times more dangerous than here. And they are in metropolis, that’s the safest place you could be.”  
  
“Well, the plague is reaching region 4, it’s just 3 regions away from the metropolis.”  
  
“At this rate they’re going to burn down all regions except metropolis.” There was a thud and Baekhyun imagined Chanyeol hit his head against his door.  
  
“I have a feeling that it’s their plan from the start.”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“Suho has a theory.”  
  
“Suho always has a theory.”  
  
“Yeah but this time-he believed that the metropolis deliberately spread the plague.”  
  
What the fuck?!  
  
“That’s insane! Half of the population was dead because of it! Why would they’re trying to kill their own nation?!”  
  
“I don’t know. I mean it’s still just a theory but-“  
  
“Shush, it’s not something the bastard should hear.”  
  
Baekhyun rolled his eyes so hard it hurt.  
  
“That’s fine. It’s been 2 months, no news from the metropolis. Kris is convinced that the metropolis doesn’t place him as high as we thought.”  
  
“Why is he still here then?”  
  
“The upper ranks want him. Kris had been trying to persuade them to just let him go or kill him and throw the body in a ditch somewhere.” Sehun purposefully made his voice louder. “But they won’t let him. I guess they have another plan or they are still waiting for the metropolis to respond. I mean we are that desperate.”  
  
“Is that how metropolis treating their  _pride_?”  
  
His heart constricted painfully in his chest. He tuned out Sehun’s reply.  
  
He knew from the start that the metropolis never put him in such a high pedestal. Sure, he was one of the smartest kid in the metropolis, probably even the smartest, he already gained a spot in the metropolis’ lab, heck he already gained a spot in the government, he was loyal - obeying every rules like an obedient dog. His face was printed in newspapers - as an example for the young generation, his principal had said.  
  
But to the point that metropolis would gave away a plenty sum of money in exchange for him? He wasn’t sure.  
  
But he thought about the big luxurious apartment in the metropolis,  _his_  big house _,_ his prestigious school—no, the metropolis wouldn’t do that to their people. They would rescue him. They were  _very fond_  of him, after all.  
  
And Suho’s theory about the plague? Pffft utter bullshit.  
  
The plague had been ravaging their nation for almost two years now. It spread west from region 7 to region 6. It started from an old widow who lived alone in a small house in region 7. She was suddenly dead covered in her own blood. No one knew the cause of her death. There weren’t any scars and wounds that indicated she was killed or killed herself. She just bleed to death. There were trail of blood from her nose, her ears, her eyes and her  _pores._  
  
The authorities brushed it off at first, for people on the outskirts were dead of weird diseases almost every day.  
  
They started to pay attention when 4 or 5 group of people were found dead from the same disease at the same time. They were those people who lived close to her.  
  
Then it spread.  
  
It started with fever, chills and they would complain of extreme weakness, abdominal pain. And their bodies would be in shock. Then they would bleed, bleed to death.  
  
Their scientists didn’t know what caused the plague, but they found the cure. It was mainly consisted of antibiotic, really. But with their condition now it was so hard to get one. They no longer be able to make natural antibiotics. They had to create it.  
  
The price of one small tube of the cure was so expensive. A lot of hospitals and clinics in the outskirts didn’t have them. And people would die sooner before they reached metropolis.  
  
The government then resulted to build gates separating each region. They did it to avoid proliferation of the plague to another region. It was a futile attempt. People started to climb the gates, killed to get out of the gates, and it spread faster and faster. The government finally decided to burn the regions that were infected.  
  
They burned region 7 first. 6 and 5 followed suit almost at the same time. The government started to distribute cures by then. There were guards guarding the gate, scanning people, injecting them with cures before entering another region. They guarded region 4 so tight now. Almost no one could get in there.  
  
The resistance blamed it on the government.  
  
He learned in school about the resistance, about their blind hatred toward the metropolis, there were signs everywhere about how vicious they could be.  
  
They talked about bringing justice to the low and middle class civilians. Those regions who were long burned down to avoid the plague proliferation. Yet they were everywhere robbing unsuspecting victims, stealing from the hospitals, killing hundreds of soldiers in their process to force the metropolis distributing cures and medicines to them.  
  
It wasn’t the government’s fault. The cure itself was so hard to come by. Everything was hard to come by, even if they have money. It was also difficult to produce those cures.  
  
They just simply didn’t have enough resources.  
  
And about the land outside the border.  
  
The land outside the border was nothing but a barren cold land. They who had stepped their foot there never came back to tell stories. They just vanished.  
  
The border located just outside region 7. There were guards there before, but with the plague, and region 7 was left empty and burnt, no one cared who got out and got in.  
  
People went there to avoid the plague, but to Baekhyun they just went into another death.  
  
The land outside the border was where the  _last_  generation lived. They were all gone after the big war. No one had dared to go there after that. And even if they did, they wouldn’t be able to survive. No one could survive in a vast plain of nothingness.  
  
That was just another resistance’s bullshit.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
He awoke to a kick in his gut.  
  
Baekhyun groaned. He only had a few seconds to realize that Tao was hovering over him before he felt a sharp pain on his head and blacked out.  
  
He woke up again, this time to a searing pain on his head. Baekhyun winced but he kept his eyes closed. There was a murmur of movement around him, subdued voices and the distinct sound of - siren?  
  
Baekhyun gritted his teeth. The sound worsened his headache. Once he thought so, the siren stopped.  
  
He opened his eyes briefly. A whirling dizziness. The low dark ceiling came into his focus. He squinted, there was someone with him.  
  
Tall, blonde - it was one of the important member-Krit? Kris? Damn.  
  
“If you’re awake don’t make a sound.” The man warned. His tone repulsive.  
  
Baekhyun groaned just to spat him. The man stiffened but otherwise didn’t say anything.  
  
“Next time, you don’t have to punch me until I’m unconscious to drag me somewhere else. You could just sedate me, like before. I much prefer that.”  
  
Baekhyun clutched his head - the searing pain had dwindled into a slow throbbing pain. “Where am I anyway?” The man still mum. But Baekhyun could see his jaw hardened.  
  
He was in a small nearly cramped room. His feet almost touched the other man’s feet. There was only wall surrounding him and it was dark. Baekhyun could vaguely make out the shape of long hallway in front of him. He could hear voices at the end of the hallway.  
  
“What am I doing here?” as expected he got no answer.   
  
Baekhyun curled in the corner of the room - opposite the man. He frowned slightly when his stomach churned again. His whole body begged for food. Baekhyun took a shaky breath and pressed his face to his knees. He was so exhausted feeling like this. He hoped his stomach would get used to hunger.  
  
He closed his eyes and willed sleep to come.  
  
He was drifted into unconsciousness when there were footsteps approaching and Baekhyun jerked his head so fast he immediately regretting his decision. The pain in his head was so sharp he almost blacked out again. Baekhyun let out the tiniest bit of whimper.  
  
“I think you hit him too hard Tao.” The man commented drily at the new person in the room - Tao.  
  
“I’m not sure I feel sorry. Suho needs you in his room Kris.” Tao said not even sparing Baekhyun a glance.  
  
The man - Kris - sighed. “Is it safe already?”  
  
“Yeah, the heli only went back and forth without actually doing anything. I think they were only looking for signs of life.”  
  
“Well, glad they don’t find one huh.” Kris rubbed his forehead and looked at Baekhyun in distaste. Baekhyun frowned at him. “Take him back to his room.”  
  
“Please don’t knock me out cold this time, I already feel like death.” Baekhyun quipped ignoring when both men glared at him.  
  
“And get him some food too Tao, please.” Kris added when Tao opened his mouth to refuse. He gritted his teeth and nodded instead.  
  
When Kris was already out of view, Tao turned to Baekhyun.  
  
“We already short of food and yet we still have to feed parasite like you. There are a lot of kids who are worthier to feed than you. I bet you just can’t get used to not having three meals served on a golden tray every day. We are just wasting our food supply giving it for a metropolis spoiled bastard.”  
  
Baekhyun was boiled with anger. He clenched his fists so hard they shook. He wanted to lash out. He wanted to jump onto the taller man and banged his head repeatedly into the floor. He wanted to do it again and again until his skull cracked open and his brain spilling out.  
  
“I hope you’d ended up like your other stupid resistance friends. Rot in metropolis jail.” He said venomously.  
  
Tao’s red lava face was the last thing he saw before the man moved, knocked him in the head so hard the sound echoing in the empty hallway.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
He was back in his room.  
  
Baekhyun huddled in his makeshift bed - made from three thin rugs folded haphazardly together.  
  
It was oddly quiet today. It worried him.  
  
No footsteps. No incessant whispers around him.  
  
The quietness screamed back at him.  
  
Did they leave him? Did they find another place to hide and left him here alone?  
  
He shivered, not liking the idea one bit. He was locked, here in this small room with no windows. No human contact. He slept on the hard floor every night, staring blankly at the same bleak ceiling for the rest of the day.  It was only magic he didn’t lose his sanity yet.  
  
Baekhyun exhaled long when he heard sounds.  
  
A faint, not-quite-there sound, it was far but it was there. It was probably on the outside of this - whatever their hiding place was.  
  
Baekhyun held his breath.  
  
It sounded like vehicle. Vehicles. There was more than one.  
  
Baekhyun gulped. Could it be..the metropolis? God, he didn’t dare to hope but-  
  
He waited, waited and waited, then came the footsteps.  
  
“Get him out please.” Said a voice, stern; authoritative, foreign.  
  
There were the familiar yet rare sound of his door being unlocked and Tao and Kai stood in front of him.  
  
They wore expressions that Baekhyun couldn’t read. He backed up feeling danger flashing in the back of his mind.  
  
He looked at the man who was shielded by Tao and Kai. He was old. He wore one of those resistance vest adherent with 5 stars. He was one of their upper ranks. It wasn’t the metropolis, Baekhyun realized in horror.  
  
Suddenly, Tao walked to him so fast and grabbed his arms. He went around his wrists and held it in a painful grip. Baekhyun screamed because Tao had twisted his wrists in an odd position.  
  
Baekhyun trashed wildly. The pain in his wrists intensified but he didn’t care. He didn’t care about having his wrists ripped off. He knew it came. His execution.  
  
Baekhyun knew Tao would attack his head, so he whipped his head and head-butted him in the nose. There was a satisfying crunch and Tao’s painful groan was heard.  
  
“Kai!” He shouted.  
  
Baekhyun was still struggling and trashing. Tao suddenly let go of him and pushed him so hard toward Kai. Breath knocked out of him.  
  
Kai caught him and Baekhyun felt the familiar prick in his neck.  
  
They sedated him.  
  
He vaguely could feel Kai hoisted his limp body on his back.  
  
“Quite the wild one isn’t he?” the foreign voice chuckled. They started walking. Baekhyun saw shapes - blinding lights above him; light bulbs? Doors on his left and right side-  
  
“I would be too if I were him.” Kai suddenly muttered under his breath. Baekhyun nodded; didn’t know why he did; and that was the last thing he did.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
He found himself in the white room where he first brought here. But thankfully, it didn’t smell so foul like before. Instead it smelled sharp with disinfectant it burned his nose.  
  
Baekhyun closed his eyes from the harsh blinding light. He tried to bring his hand to cover them, but something had him locked in place.  
  
Panic raced along his nerves. He was strapped to the bed.  
  
There was a beeping sound. Baekhyun didn’t realize it until it grew louder. The beeping sound increased its speed parroting his erratic heartbeat.  
  
“Calm down, now.” Said a voice. Baekhyun craned his neck and saw Kyungsoo was fidgeting with a small machine on a rusty long table, amid a dozen other machines.  
  
“Why am I strapped?” Baekhyun asked voice wobbling so badly he was afraid Kyungsoo couldn’t grasp what he said. So he repeated again in a slightly louder voice. “Why am I strapped?”  
  
Kyungsoo finally turned his head and faced him. He was holding two long needles attached to thin cables out of a machine. The beeping sound skyrocketed at an alarming speed.  
  
“Shit. I told you to calm down!”  
  
Baekhyun couldn’t hear Kyungsoo out of the loud buzzing sound in his ears. His heartbeat was all over his body. It felt like someone shook the bed he was on or there was an earthquake happening because he was shaking so badly. Baekhyun whimpered when he suddenly felt nauseated. His head throbbed and his throat constricted.  
  
Cold fingertips pressed against his head, Baekhyun shook his head trying to get rid of them only to have his scalp gripped tightly he couldn’t move.  
  
“It’s okay. If you cooperate they won’t take too much of your time.” Kyungsoo whispered frantically in his ear. Baekhyun gulped.  
  
They  _who_?  
  
Time for  _what_?  
  
He tried to suck in a deep breath but it went to the wrong pipe and he began coughing furiously.  
  
“Fuck.”  
  
There were sounds of movement; a sound of a door opening and closing. Then Baekhyun felt presence on each side of him.  
  
“Sir, he hasn’t calm down yet, I think we should-“  
  
A gloved hand was placed on his leg and Baekhyun jerked. He wanted to see what happened but once he could he immediately wanted to take it back. A bucket of horror was dumped onto him.  
  
There was a man, white hair, wrinkly face, vicious eyes, loomed over him with the needles that were in Kyungsoo’s hands now in his hands.  
  
“We don’t have much time, Kyungsoo. We should do the procedure now.”  
  
“But sir-“  
  
“I’ve been given permission. I’ve been wanting to let you or Suho participated, but obviously you are too soft hearted for this. If you couldn’t do it, I’m going to have my doctors to do it in your place just stay out of our way.” The man glared at a petrified Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo looked back and forth between the man and Baekhyun, fear blatant in his face.  
  
Baekhyun didn’t know what happened, but he knew if Kyungsoo gone it meant danger. “Kyungsoo..please..”  
  
Kyungsoo was taken aback and stared at him with wide scared eyes. The short man gritted his teeth and turned his head about to open his mouth to the man but someone yanked him back to the entrance of the room. It was a man clad in the resistance vest.  
  
“Sir! We need to prepare him first! He didn’t know what happen! Sir please-“ Kyungsoo was struggling against his hold.  
  
“Get him out, and call Dr. Lee and Dr. Jung here.”  
  
Once Kyungsoo was out of view, the man turned to Baekhyun and smiled at him. “I heard some interesting tidbits last week from your doctors, Suho and Kyungsoo. So they noticed how fast you heal from your previous wounds. The burns. They were quite severe they said. But strangely it only took you 3 weeks and a half for it to heal. Completely. And they didn’t have enough medical equipments here. So I wondered how can a man suffered from third degree burns on his back, being treated poorly I could say, heal so fast..I asked Kyungsoo for your blood sample. And what I found was so interesting.”  
  
His mind caught it quick and Baekhyun bristled. “You think I have some sort of healing cells in my body.” He stated, mockery dripped from his tone. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”  
  
“It may sound ridiculous to you, but you won’t be saying that if you find what I found. And the bruise, the bruise in your wrists are about to fade. Fascinating, fascinating. Anyway, I would perform some test on you to prove my theory.”  
  
Baekhyun stiffened.  
  
“You are sick!” he spat. The man just smiled at him. It was eerie and off.  
  
Two men in the same coat as the man before him rushed inside.  
  
Baekhyun knew then - somehow - looking into their determined faces, grudge mixed hope lurking behind their sharp gaze, their hurried eager steps, it was really going to be the end of him.  
  
He watched -i mmobile; with terror pooled deep in his stomach - the men clasped each other’s hands and smiled.  
  
“It could be the answer.”  
  
“I hope it’s true.”  
  
“It is! Imagine all the lives we could save!”  
  
They surrounded him.  
  
They prodded, pressed, jabbed, poked all over his body.  
  
And there was a growling sound. From a machine. The first prick of the needle in his neck had shrill shriek tore out of his throat. They injected fluids - he didn’t know - it was flowing in his veins. God, it burned. Get them out!  
  
Something pricked his wrist and soon his body locked up.  
  
Baekhyun couldn’t move an inch. He could still see but now he couldn’t even open his mouth to let out his scream.  
  
His eyes bulged out of the sockets.  
  
It burned, it burned, it burned, it burned, it burned, it-  
  
Please kill me now.  
  
Please, please, please, please, please, please-  
  
“Look at that! Streptomycin, gentamicin, doxycycline, ciprofloxacin, there are loads!” the voice screamed, victorious, triumphant, jubilant, joyful, Baekhyun didn’t know those emotions.  
  
Stop the pain, oh please stop the pain.  
  
There were laughs. Clapping sounds.  
  
Just kill me.  
  
They removed the needle in his neck harshly and his body gave a stiff jerk.  
  
Kill me, kill me, kill me, kill me, kill me-  
  
And it stopped.  
  
The pain it stopped.  
  
He was still immobile.  
  
Baekhyun wanted to sob, weep, wail, howl, but he couldn’t.  
  
He couldn’t do anything. It was like he lost control of his body. His mind. All he could feel was numbness. A restless numbness.  
  
Then he felt weak, so weak even keeping his eyes opened hurt. Thinking hurt. Breathing hurt.  
  
So he stopped.  
  


 

 

 

 

He couldn’t differentiate his dreams and reality anymore.  
  
Sometimes he floated in this white comfortable mist. He was cocooned in thick soft blanket and it was so warm.  
  
Another time, he would back in his own house in metropolis. It was one of his most favorite dream-reality. He would sit in his big fluffy arm chair, with a book lying on his lap, the sunlight would creep inside his window and it would feel like he was bathing in soft warm golden rays.  
  
His mother would be there, his father. His father would pace back and forth with today’s newspaper, muttering about nothing and everything. His mother, she would perch in front of her laptop streaming her favorite channel - talk shows, debates, metropolis’ latest condition. They would all wrapped in their own bubbles but Baekhyun loved it. It was his family. It was how they interacted.  
  
There would be food when Baekhyun stepped into the dining table. Meat, juicy meat and mango! There would be even mangoes!  
  
The other times, there would be pain. This was where he usually hoped everything was just a mere dream.  
  
After the pain there would be quietness enveloped him.   
  
Sometimes there would be presence, there, beside his bed.  
  
It could be Kris, Suho, Kai, Luhan, Kyungsoo, but mostly it was Kris.  
  
Baekhyun found himself yearned for their presence. Because it was so lonely here in this part of his dream-reality.  
  
They would sit him up if he coughed too hard, they would cover him in blanket when he shivered, they would help him drink if he whined he was too thirsty. And they would sit there, beside him, until he drifted into another dream-reality scenario.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
“Why haven’t you killed me yet?” Baekhyun asked weary.  
  
His body weakened as the days passed. He stared blankly at the ceiling, too tired to do anything. Kris had been sitting beside him for hours, playing with the match in his hand.  
  
The taller snapped his head at him and said in a hard tone. “I don’t know. No order.”  
  
“I thought you are one of the important people here.”  
  
“The upper ranks control everything.”  
  
“What-what happened if they succeed in developing more cures?”  
  
“They would give them free to people who needs it.”  
  
Baekhyun sighed. Even sighing was too strong movement for his body because he started coughing. Kris moved to grab a glass of water on the bedside table but Baekhyun shook his head, feeling his fit subsided. “Then it’s good. At least all the pain is worth it.”  
  
They lapsed into silence again. Baekhyun stared at the wall tracing the cracks with his eyes.  
  
He hoped there was a window. He wanted to see the sky, although all he could see was probably the murky grey clouds. He wanted to see the trees, brown yellowish leaves; cracked trunks; planted in a dying soil. He wanted to feel the gust of wind, quiet; cold. But really, he just wanted to be there on the outside: breathing, living.  
  
“What is happening outside?” he asked.  
  
He wasn’t expecting Kris to answer him so he was a little bit taken by surprise when the taller man answered, “Things are getting worse.”  
  
“How?”  
  
“Food shortage is worsened. People are dying, if not from the plague it’s from hunger.”  
  
His stomach dropped. “What the metropolis does about it?”  
  
“There’s nothing much they can do. It’s as worse in there. The plants are dying, the animals are dying. It’s the start of another catastrophe.”  
  
It was scary how the world could change drastically in a short span of time.  
  
He missed his old life. He missed the time when the only thing he worried about was his exam, and other petty mundane things. He missed living his life without the fear of knowing the next day you would have to suffer from the same pain, you would still be locked up, you would still be haunted by hunger.  
  
He missed his parents.  
  
His mother’s incessant nags. And his father’s secretive smile and knowing gaze.  
  
Before he could stop himself, he opened his mouth and asked the question that’d been sitting there in the very back of his mind; nudging him with every thoughts he thought; but he refused to acknowledged, “What happen to my parents?”’  
  
It took Kris awhile to answer. “They’re dead.”  
  
He kind of knew.  
  
He kind of knew already.  
  
But hearing it spoken in such a blunt manner, like they were just another passing news, like ugly weather, like food shortage, sent something sharp to his chest.  
  
Baekhyun instinctively curled on himself.  
  
He placed his hands on top of his chest, mourning silently for the loss of his parents.  
  
He didn’t know how to do it. He never dealt with death before. He didn’t know what to feel. Was he sad? Yes he was. But he couldn’t identify if it was from the loss of his parents for he already in so much pain.  
  
Should he cry? People cried when someone dear to them died. But him - he didn’t even have enough energy to breathe.  
  
And crying took so much.  
  
So he laid there. Stock-still.  
  
At least they were together, he thought, at least they didn’t have to suffer in this world anymore now that its condition was horrible. At least they didn’t have to stomach the knowledge that their only son got captured and had been used as a rat lab by the resistance.  
  
“I’m sorry.” Kris suddenly said. Baekhyun detected a faint trace of regret in his voice. Though it didn’t mean anything.  
  
“I don’t know how-these things-“ Kris trailed off. The other sighed and the chair squeaked when he got up. Baekhyun saw Kris walked out of the room from his peripheral vision.  
  
Alone.  
  
That was how he felt.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
“Your body does not just produce the antibiotics that we need to cure the plague, but it also produces other things. For example, you have unusually high number of fibroblast; they are cells that are capable of forming skin and other tissues; it helps to create new capillaries to bring oxygen-rich blood to a recovering wound. That explains how your wounds mended quickly.”  
  
Dr. Jung flipped another page in the canary yellow files. He kept murmuring exclamations: how amazing! Great!  
Fascinating!  
  
Baekhyun sat on his bed, propped up by pillows. They put him on an iv drip as he was becoming very weak. Baekhyun couldn’t swallow his food anymore. His stomach refused any kind of substance and he spent his morning vomiting all the contents of his stomach.  
  
“We’re going to undergo another test.” Dr. Jung closed the files and announced it to the room.  
  
Icy horror drenched his veins.  
  
“What test?” He croaked.  
  
“Oh just this and that. Don’t worry we won’t be putting those fluids inside you. We’re just going to take a little bit of sample from your body.”  
  
Dr. Jung moved to place the files on top of the table where the machines at.  
  
“Suho, I need Suho.” He shouted. Not long after that there was the sound of footsteps neared, and a face, a pale face almost covered by long thick brown hair, came into view. The man - Suho - walked inside. He flicked a cautious glance towards Baekhyun before quickly averted his gaze to Dr. Jung.  
  
They were talking in hushed whispers and Baekhyun chose to focus in his heavy breathing instead.  
  
It just another pain. He convinced himself.  Just another pain, Baekhyun, nothing to be scared of. Just another pain and then you could..you could.. _what?_  
  
He could  _what? Rest?_  
  
Suho walked to him. Baekhyun checked his gloved hands. He didn’t bring anything. Baekhyun relaxed a bit.  
  
Suho placed a hand on his arm, and he flinched. “I’m not going to hurt you.” Suho murmured. “I’m just going to help you sit upright for the whole procedure.”  
  
Suho had him sitting upright. Baekhyun’s head lolled to the side and Suho used his shoulder to get Baekhyun to lean against his chest. Baekhyun’s eyes fell shut as he exhaled.  
  
He heard movement beside him and the rustle of a coat. Dr. Jung. He clenched his blanket when there was a sound of a twisting cap.  
  
He tried not to imagine the thick long needle that was probably in Dr. Jung’s hand now.  
  
“Now, don’t move Baekhyun. It will be over in a blink.” Shudder wrecked his entire body. Both Suho and Dr. Jung tightened his hold on him.  
  
Baekhyun sucked in a sharp breath when the needle pierced the soft skin of his arm. It kept going and going and going until it bumped something - his bone? Baekhyun bit his lip so hard he could taste blood.  
  
It stayed there for awhile. Through his pain-clouded mind Baekhyun felt Suho caressing his nape to calm him.  
  
Then the needle was removed from his arm. Baekhyun let out a long quivering breath.  
  
“There, there. It’s nothing hard right?” Baekhyun wanted to shove the needle into the man’s eye.  
  
“You take care of him Suho. I’m going to bring this to the lab.”  
  
Suho carefully laid Baekhyun on his back. He whimpered because his body felt much weaker than before, as if it was possible.  
  
“Sleep.” Suho advised. “It will help restore your energy.”  
  
Baekhyun opened his eyes - his gaze glazed over. “When will this end?”  
  
He could see, though it was somewhat blurry, that Suho looked like he was in pain.  
  
“Baekhyun I-I don’t know.”  
  
He closed his eyes again, too tired to keep it open. He shivered, it was suddenly colder. Suho pulled his blanket to his chin and Baekhyun sighed, grateful.  
  
“Sleep, please.”  
  
Then he did.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Baekhyun jolted awake. He felt momentarily disoriented.  
  
And then he heard it again the sound of harsh whispers and rapid footsteps.  
  
His mouth dried and his heart pounding in his chest.  
  
The sound of the door to his room creaked open had him in blatant panic. Baekhyun sat quickly, the room swayed in front of him, but he could see Kris walking inside his room.  
  
His heartbeat slowed until he noticed the tight expression on Kris’ face.  
  
Kris approached him and tossed what looked like a worn out black hoodie to him.  
  
“Get up and wear it. Quick!”  
  
Too confuse to figure out what was going on, Baekhyun followed his command like a robot. He put on the hoodie, the sleeves got tangled with his iv drip. And Kris cursed.  
  
“Kris what-“ Kris shushed him with his look and carefully removed the needle in his wrist. Baekhyun let out a weak whimper. He helped Baekhyun put on the hoodie and held his shoulders.  
  
“Can you walk?”  
  
“What? Why?!”  
  
“You probably can’t. Hop on.” Kris turned and gave his back to Baekhyun. Baekhyun gaped.  
  
“Where are you taking me?!”  
  
“I’m going to get you out.”  
  
“And you think I will trust you?!”  
  
“Trust me or stay locked down here until death find you. Take your pick.”  
  
Baekhyun gritted his teeth and climbed onto his back. Kris stood up, walked hastily to the door. “Don’t make a sound. I’ll answer all your questions later.”  
  
He opened the door and Baekhyun gasped. It was pitch black outside.  
  
Kris seemed to know where he was going because he didn’t need to stop to maneuver his way in the darkness. Baekhyun held his breath. Thousand questions rounding his mind and on top of it all fear encompassed him.  
  
They turned left to what looked like a small hidden hallway and Baekhyun could feel another presence. He stiffened and tightened his grip on Kris.  
  
“It’s Suho. He’s with us.” The taller informed and Baekhyun instantly relaxed.  
  
“How many minutes we have left?” Kris asked approaching Suho.  
  
“One and a half. Kyungsoo tried to hold it as long as he can.” Suho checked on Baekhyun and fell into step with Kris.  
  
“Are they still in the hall?”  
  
“Yes. Sehun and Kai are distracting them, and Luhan, Kyungsoo and Tao will follow us shortly.”  
  
“What about Sehun, Kai, and Chanyeol?”  
  
“There was another way out near the hall, I parked a jeep there, don’t worry. Turn left here.”  
  
They turned left into a dead end hallway. They walked to it and Suho punched codes to an invisible panel, and the door - what Baekhyun first thought as wall - opened. There were set of stairs leading to another metal door.  
  
They climbed the stairs. Kris panted harshly by the time they reached the top, his grip on Baekhyun went a little slack. Suho punched another codes and this time it scanned his eye too.  
  
The door opened and finally he breathed in the open air.  
  
He sucked greedily the cold night air and filled his deprived lungs with it.  
  
Baekhyun looked around him. It was too dark to see but he could make out ruins and run downs building around him. They were in one of the burnt regions.  
  
So the resistance hideout was placed under ruins of half burnt building. It was underground.  
  
They speed-walked into a small alley that almost covered by big chunk of ruins, and stepped inside a cave-looking entrance where it was actually just a lot of ruins stacked together in such way to shield a building.  
  
The building turned out to be a garage.  
  
There were a lot of cars there. Mostly they were their nation’s military cars. Cars the police usually drove when they patrolled around regions.  
  
They walked briskly to the nearest military car. Kris took out something from his pocket. A key. It glinted in the dark. He unlocked the car and opened the passenger seat.  
  
“Get in.” he ordered Baekhyun.  
  
Baekhyun scrambled to get down from his back and get into the car. He sat and immediately clicked his seat belt in place.  
  
Kris slipped into the driver seat and Suho sat in the back.  
  
Kris turned the ignition key and the car rumbled to life, throbbing beneath them. Baekhyun leaned in his seat, taking a deep breath.  
  
When they drove out of the garage into the open night air Baekhyun felt something in him soared.  
  
He looked outside through the heavy tinted window at the trees that speeding fast.  
  
He held the urge to laugh wildly and shifted his attention to Kris.  
  
“Is it the right time to demand explanation?”  
  
Kris muttered, “Suho.”  
  
Suho inhaled a deep breath before he threw the blow: “The upper ranks tricked us.”  
  
Baekhyun glanced sharply at him through the rearview mirror. “Elaborate.”  
  
“I overheard something very appalling three days ago. I was in basement searching old files about the plague when I heard loud voices from the above. They were angry and jarring, sounded like people got into a serious argument. I recognized Dr. Jung, Dr. Lee. Dr. Hwang and Sergeant Yoon’s voice so I moved closer to the sounds. They were talking-arguing-about you.” Suho licked his lips. “They said things about how you are the key to their mission. Apparently, they planned to create the plague.”  
  
“What?!” His stomach dropped. Dread curling in his spine.  
  
“They thought that now they have the cures and a lot of information about the plague, they would find a way to create the plague.”  
  
“Why the fuck they want to create the plague? The resistance had been trying to steal cures from metropolis from the start, now they have it, why would they create the plague?!”  
  
“It’s to destroy metropolis.” Kris was the one to answer, voice solemn. “There had been talking about the upper ranks planned to overthrow the government. I heard about these rumors before, but I brushed it off. I thought it was just some kind of rumors deliberately spread to ruin the resistance.”  
  
“And turned out it’s true.” Suho said. “I heard them myself. They thought if they turned the metropolis into chaotic mess, now with the hunger, and with the plague that they would spread, people would become hopeless. We know ourselves how hard it is to get the cures. The resources are limited. And with the amount of people dying from the plague, it’s going to be harder to get one. And that’s when they would play their role.”  
  
“They’re going to act like the savior. With you as the key to their success. As long as you’re not dead your blood and cells would be always regenerate, they would always be there. So it’s like a brand new resource for them. They would have tons of cures and people would have no other choice than to obey them.”  
  
“So they used me for what? Their own greed? Here I thought I’m sacrificing myself for the human race.” Baekhyun laughed hollowly.  
  
“I know then that it’s wrong. I told the others. And we planned-we planned to rescue you. And get out from there before a new chaos erupted. We want to do it sooner, Baekhyun, I know something was off since they first did the procedure on you without your consent. But it was hard to with them always in the same room with you.”  
  
He clenched his fists so hard his knuckles turn white.  
  
All the pain. All the suffering. It led to this. Human’s greed.  
  
A strange feeling gnawing his chest. Anger. Blazing hot anger.  
  
“Baekhyun.” Suho whispered, cautious.  
  
Baekhyun ignored him. He closed his eyes. It was too much to take.  
  
He was used, tortured by the resistance. Only to help fulfilling their disgusting fantasy. Only to be a sly weapon for another type of war.  
  
Yet he still needed them.  _Them_  being the resistance members in this car. Baekhyun needed them. He didn’t know where to go. He couldn’t go back to metropolis. He didn’t have  _anyone._ His house was already turned into ashes.  
  
The tears slipped out of his tightly squeezed eyes.  
  
He didn’t know why he cried now.  
  
Now after all the torture was over.  
  
No, it was another type of torture. It was the type of torture that sneaked its way past his skin, past his veins, slowly but painfully shot him right in his heart.  
  
He was tired - weary to his very core.  
  
“Baekhyun, I’m sorry.” Suho said.  
  
Baekhyun ignored him.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
He never thought that seeing the sun rose would become such a luxury in his life.  
  
He watched in utter fascination as dawn broke over the horizon. The sun rose brought with it so many vibrant colors. It was blood red at first, then it was the palest pink, then it was deep crimson, then it was orange until finally it was gold, warm gold.  
  
Baekhyun wanted so desperately to roll down his window. He wanted to be out there, naked feet against dirty soil and skin caressed by the soft glow.  
  
But Kris had made sure all the doors and windows were locked. They couldn’t take a risk.  
  
The car stopped in the hidden pathway between two dilapidated buildings in region 6. It shielded by a big half burnt tree so people had to go round the tree to see them. They decided to sleep inside the car. It was too dangerous trespassing into shabby houses in the empty deserted region.  
  
Region 6 was the second region that got infected by the plague. It was burned down shortly after almost all of its population caught the plague.  
  
Baekhyun couldn’t lie that he was so relief when Kris announced that they should just sleep in the car. Although Suho convinced them that the chance of the plague was still out there was so thin. The region was nothing but ruins and ashes. There were no signs of life. The plague was no longer here.  
  
“You awake?” a raspy voice asked. Baekhyun startled and nodded still staring at the sunrise.  
  
He heard a sigh followed by rustling sound. “You want canned beans?”  
  
Baekhyun shook his head. The idea of eating had his stomach churned and twisted badly. It was so weird how before he craved for food and now just a mere thought of it had bile crawling up his throat.  
  
“You need to eat. You’re still weak.” Suho plead.  
  
“I’m not hungry.” He snapped, voice sounded so harsh in the quietness of the car. Kris startled awake beside him. He stared at Baekhyun and Suho and the canned beans in Suho’s hands.  
  
Baekhyun licked his chapped lips. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-” He sighed.  
  
Suho shook his head and offered the canned beans to Kris instead.  
  
The blond man took it and looked at Baekhyun. “At least drink a little bit of water.”  
  
Baekhyun nodded just to appease him.  
  
Suho and Kris ate in silence. Baekhyun tucked his feet to his chest, huddled in the big hoodie. It was getting cold fast. Baekhyun looked up outside and found that the sun already half-covered by murky grey cloud.  
  
“We have to reach region 7 by night. We’ll meet the others at the gate.” Suho said. Kris threw his empty can to the plastic bag Suho prepared. He searched for something inside another bag and took out a bottle of water. He handed it to Baekhyun.  
  
“Drink.”  
  
Baekhyun rolled his eyes at the commanding tone but took it nonetheless. He put it beside him and prepared to put his seatbelt. He felt Kris’ gaze at his back and turned his head.  
  
“What?” He bit.  
  
“I told you to drink.” He repeated with impassive face.  
  
Baekhyun shook his head, grabbed the bottle and drank. Kris only turned his head when Baekhyun had drunk almost half the bottle. He wanted to chuck the bottle into Kris’ head.  
  
They drove again after that.  
  
It was weird to see the lands they passed in the daylight. It didn’t bother him yesterday because he couldn’t clearly see them. But he could see them stark clear now, the images kind of disturbing.  
  
What was a region full with houses, schools, and markets, now became a wide space of burnt land.  
  
Baekhyun was avoiding looking at those ruins for too long afraid he would accidentally spot a body or something; though the chances of that were nearly impossible.  
  
He shivered thinking about people actually lived in this region before. Old men, old women, mothers, fathers and kids. And all of them died almost at the same time because of a horrible plague.  
  
“Are you cold?” Kris suddenly asked, probably noticing how he shivered just now.  
  
“I’m fine.” Baekhyun answered. He glanced at Kris and saw the man had his brow furrowed while looking into the road, his jaw clenched and his grip on the stirring wheel tight. Baekhyun wondered if the dead region freaked him out as much as it freaked Baekhyun.  
  
He looked behind him and found Suho dozing off in the back seat. His face pressed into the window and his mouth slightly agape.  
  
They drove in silence. Baekhyun felt a little drowsy, but he couldn’t find in him to fall asleep. His senses had been on alert even though his eyes were heavy and his mind was tired.  
  
“We’re going to need fuel soon. I think we have to stop somewhere to fill the tank. I hope we still have enough gasoline left.” Kris broke the silence. Baekhyun sat upright again in his seat.  
  
“Do you already figure out where will we stay if that happens?”  
  
“Not yet.” Kris sighed, heavy and frustrated. “We practically running away blind. Suho and I planned to meet the others in region 7 and figure it out together. But I don’t know, we should find a place. I don’t like the idea of going into one of these empty buildings though.”  
  
“Same.” Baekhyun muttered.  
  
They lapsed into silence again.  
  
He could see Kris glanced at him from his peripheral vision. Baekhyun chose to pretend to look like he found something interesting at the dashboard of the car.  
  
“Are you feeling better?” Baekhyun was taken aback by the concern laced in Kris’ usual flat tone so he looked up and stared at the taller. The man already averted his gaze back into the road.  
  
“I-I don’t know if I will feel better anymore. The adrenaline of running away from that place still rushing in my blood, so the reality of what happened to me hasn’t kicked in yet.”  
  
“I know you don’t want to hear it but I’m sorry. I’m sorry for how we treated you.”  
  
Baekhyun gulped, his stomach churned again.  
  
He didn’t answer Kris. He chose instead to lean his head into the window, feeling the cool glass against his skin.  
  
Kris seemed to get the sign because he didn’t bug Baekhyun anymore after that.  
  
The apology was a surprise to Baekhyun. He still didn’t know how he actually felt about them. Them, the  _good_  resistance. They helped him, yes, they cared for him now and felt sorry for what they did. But Baekhyun also felt sorry for himself because of what they did. Sure they weren’t the one who pierced his skin with those thick needles, pouring the fire liquid inside his veins, but they were there and they didn’t try to stop them.  
  
They watched him being tortured, for some sick reason Baekhyun knew they agreed about the plan - sacrificing him in exchange for the plague cures. That was their plan from the start when they kidnapped him from the fire though. It just they didn’t agree on the part he was being tortured without his consent. And felt guilty now that the purpose of that was solely to their upper ranks’ selfish fantasy.  
  
“I’m not sure I will find it in me to forgive you.” Baekhyun began. He felt slightly nauseous and his palms were sweating. “The pain was-it was unbearable. And you were there yet you didn’t-“ Baekhyun sucked in a deep breath. “I know that you are not a bad person, you, Suho, and probably the others. I know that you’re nice to me now, willing to help me when you had a choice to just left me there and ran away with your friends, but it’s just so hard for me-“ His voice broke and wobbling terribly at that.  
  
“I understand.” Kris said when Baekhyun didn’t continue his sentence. “I understand that you won’t be able to forgive me. But I just want you to know that, I’m really sorry. For how we treated you before, for how cruel we were to you.”  
  
Baekhyun nodded signaling he was done talking. He felt oddly tired after the conversation and he realized that was the most he was talking since the day he was captured.  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

They stopped somewhere in region 6.  
  
Kris was outside filling the tank with gasoline so Baekhyun was alone with Suho in the car. It was awkward.  
  
Suho was sat idly in the back but the tension was so palpable between them. Suho and Kris handled their guilt differently.  
  
For Kris, with Baekhyun knowing he was sorry for what he did was enough for him. But Suho had to make sure Baekhyun forgave him. Had to make sure Baekhyun knew how much he regretted what he did. It wasn’t so hard to see though. Baekhyun could see his regret at the slump of his shoulders. At the furrow between his eyebrows whenever he glanced at Baekhyun. He knew the man sincere. Baekhyun just needed time.  
  
He was staring at Kris fumbling with hose and the big gallon which contained gasoline, when Suho spoke. “I’m from the metropolis too you know.”  
  
Baekhyun averted his gaze and craned his neck to look at Suho. The man was in the same position as him, leaning to the window in the seat opposite Baekhyun.  
  
“Where do you live?” Baekhyun asked just for sake of keeping the conversation going.  
  
“Silver.”  
  
Silver was an apartment complex where the upper class society lived. Although it wasn’t as elite as the complex where Baekhyun lived: Gold.  
  
“You have money.” Baekhyun frowned. Suho chuckled, though there wasn’t anything joyous in it.  
  
“I did. Or at least my parents did.”  
  
“What made you join the resistance then?” the people who joined the resistance consisted mainly from regions, especially those regions near the border. Region 7, 6, 5 were where a lot of the resistance members came from. A lot of people who lost their house after the government burned their region also joined the resistance, that or became a criminal.  
  
“I was doing my internship in Metropolis Main Hospital. That was when before the plague started. But there were still a lot of patients, region people most of the time. I noticed a lot of things there. First, how they separated the building for patients who came from metropolis and those who came from regions. I didn’t know about that before. It was complete the opposite. It was small, dirty and the beds were hard. At first I thought because they paid a little so that was what they deserved, but no. They paid the same amount of money, and if you were from region they would immediately escort you right to that building.”  
  
Baekhyun also didn’t know about that. All he knew was Metropolis Main Hospital was big. The rooms were big and the beds were soft and fluffy. He remembered one time when he was six his father was hospitalized after he broke his arm. Baekhyun and his mother even got room for themselves while waiting for him.  
  
“And the second, they didn’t give enough medicine for region people. No matter how much you paid they wouldn’t give you the supposed amount of medicine. They would cut them. I was so furious back then, there were piles of piles of medicines in the inventory room. The region people could get the amount that they deserved and more. And the last, they refused patients if you didn’t pay them up front.” Suho took a shaky breath. “There was a commotion once, this old man from region 7, he was dying. Pneumonia. The small hospitals in region didn’t have enough equipments, as usual. He was standing there, dying, and the people in reception refused him.”  
  
Baekhyun was almost afraid to ask. “What happen to him?”  
  
“The janitor found his body in a small alley beside the hospital the next morning.”  
  
Baekhyun sucked in a sharp breath. Suho smiled sadly at him. “That’s why, when someone offered me to join the resistance I didn’t think twice to accept it. This society is so fucked up and someone has to put an end to this. How foolish I was to think that someone could be me.”  
  
Baekhyun didn’t know what to think. He kept mulling over and over again all the things Suho said. He didn’t know all of those things happened. It wasn’t on the news. To think of it, their news was full of the crimes that the resistance members committed, or region people committed. But never the metropolis.  
  
Baekhyun was going to be sick.  
  
It was against all of his belief. Metropolis couldn’t-wouldn’t-metropolis was what sheltering all of the regions.  
  
But the proofs Baekhyun, the proofs.  
  
They abandoned you. Sure you were no one important, but they could’ve done something to save an innocent civilian. And what Suho said, if it was true-god.  
  
He jumped in his seat when there was aloud beeping sound coming from the back. He looked at Suho in alarm. The man fished out a strange looking machine from his bag. It beeped and flashing red light in a rapid speed.  
  
“Fuck.” Suho cursed. Baekhyun stiffened. Suho punched something in his machine, saw something, and cursed out loud. He looked like someone had burned his family alive in front of him.  
  
“Get Kris!”  
  
Baekhyun immediately opened his door with trembling hands. “Kris!”  
  
Kris turned his head and widened his eyes when he saw something in Baekhyun’s face. He was in front of him in an instant.  
  
“What happened?”  
  
“I don’t know-Suho-“  
  
“Kyungsoo, Luhan and Tao got captured by the resistance. Meet Sehun, Chanyeol and Kai in Region 7 gate.”  
  
“Fuck!”  
  
Icy fear ran down Baekhyun’s body. Kris ran to the driver seat and closed the door harshly.  
  
“Buckle your seatbelt.” Kris said with gritted teeth.  
  
It took Baekhyun three times to buckle his seatbelt right because his fingers were shaking so hard. They drove fast. Not caring to find roads that could shield them from other eyes.  
  
He clutched his seatbelt so tight his knuckles turned white. What would happen to them? He didn’t want to go back to that place anymore. He would give anything- _anything-_ to stay far far far away from there.  
  
Suho letting out a choked sob and Kris cursed again.  
  
“Kyungsoo is tough. Don’t forget that. They had Tao with them. They will be just fine.” Kris said in a hard tone. “Luhan is smart. They will probably trick them to let them out.”  
  
For the longest time there were only sounds of Suho’s sniffles and the car engine. Baekhyun tried to convince himself that nothing bad would happen.  
  
He would be okay, he would be okay, he would be okay, he would be okay-  
  
They reached the gate.  
  
He could spot a jeep not far from them. They jumped out of the car right after Kris turned off the engine.  
  
“What happened?!” Suho yelled when Kai and Chanyeol got out the car. Oddly Sehun stayed in the car.  
  
“Sehun got shot in his left arm.” Kai said answering their silent question. There was a collective gasp. Kai looked so worn out. His eyes were red rimmed and his clothing and hair unkempt. Baekhyun could see his hands trembled.  
  
“Get me the medical kit.” Suho said to Chanyeol, then turned to Kai. “You. Explain to them.” With that they both rushed into the car to tend Sehun.  
  
Baekhyun shifted his attention to Kai. Kai looked like he wanted to follow Suho into the car. Kris seemed to notice this too because he said, “Explain to us. He’ll be okay with Suho.”  
  
Kai took a deep breath and ran his shaking hand to his hair. “We were following the plan. Really. Sehun and I just about to get out of the hall to find the jeep when Chanyeol ran to us and told us that the upper ranks found out about the siren and the whole metropolis patrol search the ruins were fake. They-they knew right away it had something to do with Baekhyun. They couldn’t find Baekhyun in the hall, so were you and Suho, then they connected the dots. I told you our plan was weak! They found Luhan hunkered in the control room fumbling with the siren codes. We tried to run after that. Tao knocked them unconscious. But there were other resistance members and they were following us and we lost-we lost them. I wanted to go back I swear I do! But there were so much of them and S-Sehun got shot. Kyungsoo said-Kyungsoo said to find Suho. And we left them. It was my fault! I should’ve helped them-I should’ve-“ Kai was sobbing. His entire body shook.  
  
“It wasn’t your fault.” Kris stated. Baekhyun could detect the quivering in his voice. “Kai, it wasn’t” Kai shook his head in response.  
  
Baekhyun felt a hollow ache in his heart. He didn’t know them, but he knew what happened to them was partly his fault.  
  
They did it to rescue him. The upper ranks found out about the trick because they noticed Baekhyun missing.  
He remembered Kyungsoo’s surprised face when he begged him not to leave him. He remembered Luhan’s sympathy look. Then he remembered Tao’s angry sneer and insults.  
  
He couldn’t find it in him to feel bad and it made him nauseated. He fisted his palms and refused to justify his feelings any further.  
  
Kai and Kris got into the car to check on Sehun after that. Baekhyun stood near his car and watched all of them fussing over Sehun.  
  
He crouched down in the ashen-gray soil. His stomach hurt from the lack of food and he felt slightly light headed.  
  
Where would they go after this?  
  
What would he do if they found a place to stay?  
  
He didn’t have anything anymore. Purpose, dreams, all of those things were so foreign to him now.  
  
He was tired.  
  
He was so so tired.  
  
If only he didn’t find that small way out during the fire. If only he came back looking for his mother and father. If only he wasn’t Byun Baekhyun, metropolis’ darling son. If only-  
  
The ground was shaking.  
  
Baekhyun froze momentarily confused. Earthquake?  
  
A familiar rumbling sound.  
  
He leapt into his feet. “Kris they’re here!”  
  
Kris got out of the car, face tight and jaw hardened, he ran to Baekhyun. The rumbling sounds got louder. Kai’s car roared to life, he nodded at them before pulling out and lunged forward to the opposite direction.  
  
Baekhyun scrambled into the car. He buckled his belt in time Kris shut the door to the driver seat and gun the engine.  
  
“Hold tight.” Baekhyun clutched his seatbelt for dear life.  
  
They drove too fast. They drove too fast on a too narrow road full with ruins. The speedometer continued to climb.  
  
The sound of another engine was so close behind them.  
  
“Son of a bitch!” Kris swerved the car to the left to a small pathway that looked more like a walkway than a road. He kept his eyes trained on the ever-constricting slender space.  
  
“Kris!” Baekhyun wheezed when the sound of another engine got louder and louder. Kris took a sharp left. He then swung the car to the right into another narrow road. On either side of their car, burnt buildings threatened to scratch their side mirrors.  
  
The resistance’s car was a faint rumbling sound in the distance.  
  
“We are too easy to spot in the car. As soon as I stop, get out.”  
  
Baekhyun’s stomach cramped and his hands began to sweat.  
  
Kris maneuvered the car into a fairly decent half burnt building and slammed to a stop.  
  
He then rummaged under his seat and took out two small guns. He pushed one gun into Baekhyun’s badly trembling hands.  
  
“Aim. Shoot. Don’t hesitate.” Kris said, each words punctuated by a hard look on his eyes. Baekhyun nodded, the gun felt too heavy in his hands.  
  
“Follow me.” Kris opened the driver door and Baekhyun followed suit. When their feet touched the ground they broke into a run.  
  
They ran outside the building and sneaked into an alleyway. Their steps echoing in the empty street. Kris pulled Baekhyun into another half intact building. They pressed their bodies onto the hard wall; black covered with soot. The pounding of his heart was so loud Baekhyun was sure Kris could hear it.  
  
They ducked and crouched down under a stack of ruins forming a small hideout.  
  
The sound of the resistance’s car was heard again near the building where they parked their car. Baekhyun’s breath hitched and he bit back his whimper.  
  
And then it moved. Louder. Louder. Closer. Closer.  
  
It was just outside this building.  
  
Baekhyun gripped his gun. Sweats dripped into his eyes blurring his vision a bit. Kris’ breathing turned harsh.  
  
They drove away and stopped.  
  
There were sounds of car doors being opened and slammed shut.  
  
“They couldn’t go far.” Terror so great froze him. Baekhyun knew that voice. Sergeant Yoon. In front of him Kris went rigid.  
  
“Search inside the buildings. They are walking.”  
  
“Yes sir!” two voices. There were three resistance members.  
  
Kris tapped his hand and motioned to his gun. “Aim. Shoot.” He mouthed. Baekhyun nodded. He wiped his sweaty palms on his pants and held his gun with determination. There were footsteps approaching the building they were in. It was far but he knew soon they would find their little hideout.  
  
Kris also seemed to think so. He got up and gestured Baekhyun to follow him. They carefully slipped inside a tiny gap between their hideout and the wall. Baekhyun held his breath and tried to make his self as small as possible, as quiet as possible.  
  
Baekhyun could see the end of the long gap. It led to the back of this building. Kris carefully walked out and immediately stopped short. Baekhyun almost bumped his back. He was about to open his mouth to ask what was wrong when a voice spoke in a tone that sent tremble of hysteria all over his body.  
  
“Long time no see Kris.” Sergeant Yoon stood in front of them, gun aimed at Kris.  
  
Kris pulled Baekhyun behind him and shielded him with his body. “I can’t say I’m happy to see you again.”  
  
“You sneaky fuckers.” Sergeant Yoon spat. “You think you and your little friends could trick us. You betrayed the resistance! I was about to make you part of the upper ranks and yet you helped that metropolis bastard!”  
  
“Yeah well I’d rather help the metropolis bastard rather than-“ it happened in a split of second. Kris pushed Baekhyun hard to the side and there was a loud sound of a gun went off. Baekhyun scrambled to sit up. He watched with wide eyes as Kris aimed and shot Sergeant Yoon. It grazed the man’s ankle. He howled in pain and fired at Kris. Kris dodged it and he fired back, two, three times. It hit Sergeant Yoon in his chest and stomach. The man crumbled, his blood pooling under him.  
  
“Baekhyun run!” Baekhyun snapped and got up. His steps faltered when there was a man clad in the resistance’s vest stood looming a meter away from him. Baekhyun’s grip in his gun loosened. He watched in horror as the man raised his gun and aimed at him. Baekhyun felt something whooshed in his ear and the next thing he knew a bullet hit the man’s skull with a terrifying crack.  
  
Baekhyun turned and saw Kris standing behind him holding his gun with a horrified expression on his face.  
  
“Are you ok-“ Kris’ question was cut by a painful shout. Kris’ eyes wide with shock and pain. Red smeared the sleeve of his sweater. He got hit.  
  
A man walked out of the tiny gap they were in.  
  
Baekhyun wielded his gun. His hands shook and he gripped his gun tightly.  
  
Aim. Shoot. Don’t hesitate. Aim. Shoot. Don’t hesitate. Aim-  
  
The man raised his gun again and aimed it at Kris. Baekhyun saw his chance and pulled the trigger.  
  
Shoot.  
  
Everything was going in slow motion as he watched the bullet rip apart the man’s neck. The man let out a blood curling scream. Baekhyun aimed again, this time it hit the man in the chest. The man crumbled. His gun fell to the ground with a clattering sound. The man’s body gave one last jerk before he stilled completely.  
  
Baekhyun froze.  
  
Blood were rushing to his head making him dizzy. He swayed and dropped his gun to the ground. He flinched at the sound.  
  
He just killed a man.  
  
He just killed a man. He just killed a man. He just killed a man. Look at his blood. Look at his blood. Look at his blood. Look at those lifeless eyes. Look. Look. Look.  
  
Baekhyun moved his shaking hands to cover his mouth. There were weird sounds. Like someone was choking and gagging and retching. He was confused. His stomach churned, cramped, twisted. His head spinning, rotating, twirling. His throat burned. God why was it so hard to breathe?  
  
“Ssshh..Baekhyun..it’s okay.” He was enveloped in a warm hug. A tight warm hug. “It’s okay..it’s okay.” Said a soothing voice.  
  
Kris.  
  
Baekhyun knees buckled and Kris tightened his hold. He sucked in a breath only to realize that he was the one who made the weird sounds. He was crying. Sobbing horribly.  
  
“I killed him.” Baekhyun said between gasp.  
  
“If you didn’t he would’ve killed both of us.” Kris said. Baekhyun gulped. His mind kept rewinding the picture of the man soaked in his own blood. He gagged again. His throat constricted and his mouth tasted like vomit.  
  
Kris held Baekhyun’s jaw, forcing the smaller to look at him. Baekhyun tried to see Kris’ eyes amidst his blurry eyes. “You did the right thing. You saved us. You saved me. He would’ve shot me straight and I would’ve dead. You saved me.”  
Baekhyun shuddered allowing himself to absorb Kris’ words. He looked at Kris’ sharp eyes. Seeing truth reflecting back at him. He nodded, accepting what Kris said.  
  
He leaned back to disentangle himself from their hug and that was when he remembered Kris’ bleeding arm. “You’re hurt!”  
  
“It’s okay. The bullet only grazed my arm. I’ll just have to bandage it.” Kris said smiling reassuringly. Baekhyun didn’t feel quite assured though. He bleed a lot.  
  
They walked to the car with Baekhyun cautiously glancing at Kris’ injured arm every minute and Kris kept telling him that he was okay.  
  
Baekhyun helped him cleaned and bandaged the wound. Thankfully, Suho had left his medical kit inside the car.  
  
Suho.  
  
Baekhyun shook his head telling himself to focus to one problem at hand.  
  
They drove again around region 7. Kris maneuvered the car carefully, hiding behind ruins, buildings and burnt trees.  
  
Kris grabbed two breads and silently gave one to Baekhyun. Baekhyun accepted it and started to nibble it slowly.  
  
He felt so exhausted and sleepy now that the adrenaline leaving his body. It felt like there was an invisible force weighing him down. He put down his bread when his stomach started to hurt, refusing the food. Kris made him drink one bottle of water.  
  
They decided to park inside a building this time. So they did. They found a building covered in burnt trees. They parked the car there and rolled down the window feeling the cold night air.  
  
It calmed him.  
  
He buried himself in his hoodie craving for warmth.  
  
He lost another piece of himself again.  
  
He kept losing himself he was afraid he would never find a way back.  
  
“I was fifteen when I first killed a man.” Kris shared, breaking the silence. “I couldn’t sleep for a week after that. Once I slept I had nightmares plaguing my nights. It still haunted me to this day I think.”  
  
“What happened?”  
  
“A man tried to rape my sister.” His voice sad, angry, bitter. Baekhyun stunned to silence. He looked at the flicker of so many emotions in Kris’ face and decided that they were too exhausted and wounded to talk about heavy topics.  
  
“You have a sister?” Baekhyun asked instead. He could see Kris secretly letting out a sigh of relief. And he smiled despite himself.  
  
“Yeah. older than me.”  
  
“What was she like?”  
  
“Chatty. Overly chatty. And pretty.”  
  
“My mom was also overly chatty.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Yeah. There was one time when my school invited her to speak in front of other parents, and she spoke for two hours. It supposed to be only fifteen minutes but no one could stop her.”  
  
Kris chuckled and Baekhyun smiled. It felt weird. Smiling after what happened. Smiling at  _Kris._  
  
“My mom wanted two daughters and she got one daughter and one son instead. When I was a kid she used to dress me as a girl.”  
  
Baekhyun sputtered. “You?!”  
  
“Yeah. People would think that my sister and I were twins. My dad was so furious when he found out.”  
  
“You just gave me mental images of you in girl dresses and I think it’s going to haunt my nightmares for months.”  
  
They laughed. His laugh sounded raspy, grating his throat painfully and jarring in the quiet night.  
  
Baekhyun felt the ever present knots in his stomach unraveled a bit.  
  
He closed his eyes enjoying the cold night breeze caressing his face. He could feel the strings of sleep pulling him.  
  
“It’s okay, you know, Baekhyun. What you did.” Baekhyun opened his eyes and found Kris staring intently at him.  
  
“It’s not going to change who you are.” He added.  
  
Something crawled up Baekhyun’s throat, and for the first time in months it wasn’t bile. His eyes burned and Baekhyun blinked.  
  
“Thanks Kris.” He whispered, lips pulled into a wobbly smile.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
“We should go to the land outside the border.” Kris announced the next morning when they sat together eating beans from the same can.  
  
Baekhyun choked on his beans. “What?”  
  
“We have no other choice. We couldn’t stay in any region with the resistance and the police searching those places. Going to the metropolis is out of choice.”  
  
“But what’s out there?”  
  
“Whatever out there can’t be worse than here.”  
  
Baekhyun thought about the vanished people, the chilling stories about the land outside the border, about its nothingness. “I’m not sure.”  
  
“Suho and I thought about this possibility before. And yesterday we realized that we really need to go. I told him if shit goes down I’ll meet him there.”  
  
“But we’re going to running out gas, and food. How are we supposed to survive there?”  
  
“It’s not like we can find anything here either. Look around you. Everything’s dead.”  
  
Baekhyun didn’t like the idea. But he didn’t have any better idea either. The resistance was looking for them and Baekhyun didn’t want to go back to his torturous cage again. But going to the land outside the border was like walking into a dark vortex where he wouldn’t know where he’d ended up and what was waiting for him on the other side.  
  
“Okay.” He whispered, defeated. “Okay.”  
  
“We’ll be okay. We don’t even know if what people say about the land outside the border is true.”  
  
It turned out to be true.  
  
At least the vast plain of nothingness.  
  
It was - what did his professor call it again - dessert? Yeah it was a dessert. It was so vast they couldn’t see anything apart from sand. Sand and the blinding sun.  
  
It was so weird how hot it was here. People said the land outside the border was cold, so cold they could freeze you. But the heat was piercing here. Even if he was inside the car he could still feel it. The sky was clear, not murky like the sky he used to see in the nation. He would gape and wonder about how blue the sky looked if he wasn’t so busy stopping himself to a full blown panic.  
  
“It’s like the view is frozen in place.” Kris mumbled. Baekhyun agreed wholeheartedly.  
  
They drove cautiously. Baekhyun could see Kris kept glancing to the side mirror, the rearview mirror, as if afraid they were being followed.  
  
There was something eerie about this dessert too. Baekhyun refused to think what would happen if they running out of gas and had to walk.  
  
He let out a disappointed sigh when the first thing he saw other than sand was a rock. A huge rock.  
  
And the sand again.  
  
Baekhyun looked at Kris and noticed his bandage was red, his wound reopened. It seeped to the sleeve of his sweater.  
  
“Your wound.” Baekhyun told the man. Kris looked at his wound and sighed.  
  
They stopped near a weird looking rock to change his bandage. Kris grabbed a t-shirt from the back seat and took off his sweater. Baekhyun quickly averted his gaze, feeling flustered for some weird reason. He mentally chastised himself.  
  
“When do you pack all of this stuff?” Baekhyun asked trying to distract himself from his embarrassing reaction.  
  
“It’s my car.” Kris said. “I used this car to spy on the metropolis. We do that sometimes. I could go for days, hence the clothes and food.”  
  
Baekhyun glanced at Kris and was relief to find the man already clad in a simple white t-shirt.  
  
“Do you want to change too? I still have another t-shirt.” He offered.  
  
Baekhyun thought about changing in front of Kris and immediately against the idea. “Uh no, I’m fine.”  
  
They continued again their journey.  
  
The sun disappeared quick. It got darker and colder.  
  
“So it’s also true what they say about the land outside the border being cold.” Baekhyun mumbled shoving his hands inside his hoodie. Kris nodded he put on again his dirty sweater.  
  
They found another rock big enough to shield them. It was way too dark to drive. They reclined in their seat. Kris got them breads again.  
  
“I’m so sick of this bread and the canned beans.” Baekhyun mumbled, shoving a tiny bit of the hard bread into his mouth.  
  
“In region 3 we usually dip this bread into a cream that made from corn and milk.”  
  
Baekhyun looked up at him. “You are from region 3?”  
  
“Yeah. Luhan and I.”  
  
“You’ve been friends with Luhan since then?”  
  
“No, not really. He was one of the smartest kids, and I-well I wasn’t. His parents wouldn’t let him near me.” Kris chuckled.  
  
“What, were you that type of kid who always created ruckus in the markets?” Baekhyun teased.  
  
“Sort of.” Kris smiled. His smiled soon faltered and disappeared without trace. Baekhyun stared at Kris, brows furrowing.  
Then he remembered. Luhan. He got captured by the resistance. Luhan, his good friend from region 3.  
  
Baekhyun didn’t know how to respond so turned to look at the empty night sky instead. He couldn’t feel what Kris felt. He felt nothing about his friends being captured. Maybe the slightest bit of guilt but it sure did not compare to what Kris felt.  
  
God-he killed a man, feeling nothing about people who had part in helping him escaped got captured.  
  
Had he lost his humanity?  
  
Had he lost his heart?

 

 

 

 

 

Things started to go downhill the next day.  
  
It was noon, the sun was high, the heat was unbearable when their car ran out of gas.  
  
Baekhyun cursed and Kris slammed the steering wheel. He knew it was bound to happen but he kind of hoped that they would find something-anything-before it did.  
  
Reluctantly, they emerged from the chrysalis of their car and immediately got assaulted by the blazing heat. Baekhyun took off his hoodie and tied it around his waist. He helped Kris loaded two bottles of water, breads, canned beans and their medical kit into a worn out pack.  
  
He hoisted the pack on his back. Kris locked the car, though Baekhyun thought it was useless since no one would steal it.  
  
There were no living creatures other than them in this dead dessert.  
  
Kris walked to him and shoved a gun to his hand. “Put it in your back pocket.”  
  
He refused to think anything as he shoved the gun into his back pocket. The metal was cold but it burned his skin through his shirt.  
  
They walked then. Steps unsure and shoulders slumped. The sun pierced both Baekhyun’s eyes and his skin. It wasn’t long since they were started walking, if he turned his head he would still be able to see their car, but sweat already clinging heavily on him. His shirt stuck disgustingly to his back.  
  
“I think the rumor about the vanishing people is right.” He said, wiping for the nth times sweat that trickling to his eyes. “No one could survive in this.”  
  
Kris only shook his head at him.  
  
They walked in silence. It had been so long since the last time Baekhyun had to walk far. His feet stiff like they were too rusty to move and his muscles were sore already. He tried to empty his brain, let his body moved mechanically, detached himself from what happen but it was so hard. It made him felt caged surrounded by sand and sand and sand and a rock and sand.  
  
It felt like they already walked for years when in truth they probably only walked for no longer than thirty minutes. Baekhyun felt his throat dried and his mouth tasted like ash.  
  
“I’m thirsty.” Baekhyun pulled the pack and took out a bottle of water.  
  
“Don’t drink too much.” Kris chastised. Baekhyun sighed and took a mouthful.  
  
It kept getting hotter, and hotter, and hotter. The wind blew sand to his face. It stuck to his greasy hair, his clothes, the gap of his fingers, he could even feel them inside his nostrils.  
  
He glanced at Kris and frowned when the taller still looked decent. His skin just flushed and his blond hair was plastered to his scalp. Baekhyun felt like he was dumped into hot boiling water and rolled in sand.  
  
His shirt was fully drenched at the same time he started to trip on his step.  
  
“I don’t think I can walk anymore.” He wheezed.  
  
“We have to. We can’t waste time here.” Kris said. Baekhyun huffed. He found it harder and harder to keep up with Kris’ long steps.  
  
He doubted there was anything beyond the vastness of this sand. That was why the government didn’t care when someone ran into the land of the border. That because they knew they would come back eventually, that or dead.  
  
His throat burned and he found himself drank water more often than Kris wanted him too. He could feel the man’s stare on the back of his head whenever he fished out his bottle but he ignored him. Kris took the pack from him when Baekhyun started to pant harshly.  
  
Numbness spread to his feet. He couldn’t feel them anymore.  
  
“We have to find a big rock to stay the night.” Kris announced.  
  
Baekhyun chuckled bitterly. “How far do you think we have to walk until we find a rock? I only saw one after walking this far, and it was as big as your fist.”  
  
“We have no choice. We have to find something to shield us from the cold wind.”  
  
Baekhyun gritted his teeth and tried to fasten his steps.  
  
“I’m thirsty.”  
  
“You just drank.”  
  
“Well, I’m thirsty again!”  
  
“Stop whining and walk faster!”  
  
“It’s easy for you to say you didn’t have your body strapped to a bed and had people injected you with weird shit for months! I’m not used to move!”  
  
Kris’ eyes widened in shock. Baekhyun was also stunned, didn’t know where that came from. He opened his mouth trying to find something to say but he didn’t know what. It was true. His body didn’t work like it was before. It had gotten weaker and weaker and weaker.  
  
Kris threw his almost empty bottle to him. “Don’t complain if you don’t have enough water tomorrow.” And with that he marched ahead Baekhyun.  
  
Baekhyun fisted his hands. He could feel sharp nails jabbed painfully into his palms.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
The night was somehow colder than yesterday. It was probably because he felt it straight on his skin without the cocoon of the car protecting him.  
  
They couldn’t find a rock to shield them from the cold wind, so they laid there on the sand in the middle of nowhere - the gun digging his back painfully. Kris had given the pack to Baekhyun to use as a pillow and he was too exhausted, too upset and cold to be thankful for that.  
  
Baekhyun burrowed himself into his hoodie. But it was too thin to protect him from the cold. His teeth were chattering and Baekhyun clenched them shut.  
  
They lied side by side. There was a big gap between them. The atmosphere was tense and heavy, so different from the night before. Baekhyun only had his outburst to blame.  
  
He was afraid to close his eyes. His body aching all over but he wasn’t sleepy. He felt so vulnerable lying on the open. Kris’ presence comforted him but it did nothing to calm his nerves. He could make out the shape of the man sleeping. It was dark but he could see the steady rise and fall of Kris’ chest.  
  
Baekhyun stayed awake all night.  
  
His knees curled up to his chin and his arms wrapped around his shivering body.  
  
  
  
  
They set to walk again at dawn. Kris had silently changing his bandage, Baekhyun didn’t help him this time.  
  
He was grateful for the sun hadn’t came out yet. He tied his hoodie around his waist again and made sure the gun was still in its place.  
  
He was lagging behind Kris. The man was a full long step ahead in front of him. Kris got the pack, it dangled when he walked.  
  
Baekhyun thought about what kind of possibilities could await them at the end of this dessert. If there were any possibilities at all. He thought about oasis. He learned it before that there used to be an oasis decades, decades ago. In the middle of a dessert.  
  
He thought about sea. There was sand near a sea, if he could remember from his lesson. He never saw a sea before neither did all the people in the nation. But this was a whole different place. The land outside the border. There could be a sea. There could be towns. Towns with flowers, with green trees.  
  
He kept doing that, making up scenarios. It reminded him of his habit back when he was still captured in that small room.  
  
The sun rose again.  
  
His lungs burned. His feet burned. His skin burned.  
  
He was so thirsty, but he was too tired to call Kris asking for his bottle. He wasn’t sure if he had enough anyway.  
  
He wanted cold water. He wanted a big glass of juice. Oh juice! He wanted a roof. He wanted a hat. He wanted a bath. He wanted a new set of clothes. He wanted solid ground under his feet. He wanted his house back. He wanted his parents back. He wanted-  
  
“Baekhyun?”  
  
He sucked in a sharp breath and looked up. Kris was right in front of him, worry swam in his eyes. Baekhyun took a step back and stumbled. Kris steadied him with a hand on his elbow.  
  
“Do you want to stop here?” Kris asked. Baekhyun wanted to nod, wanted to shake his head, he was so confused-he ended up doing a mix of both of it.  
  
“Okay. I’ll take it as a sign we should stop here.”  
  
They sat on the sand. Baekhyun slumped and pressed his face to his dirty pants.  
  
“Here, drink.” Kris hoisted him up and pushed a bottle of water to his mouth. Baekhyun shook his head, the bottle was still half full, it was Kris’.  
  
“Drink.” Kris repeated with a stern voice. He pushed the bottle more insistently and Baekhyun compiled, almost cried in relief at the cool water sloshing in his dry throat.  
  
“I’m sorry.” He said finally after Kris placed the bottle back in the pack.  
  
“It’s fine.”  
  
“I’m sorry for slowing us.”  
  
Kris stared at him with an unreadable expression before he sighed, raking his hand to his dirty hair. “I know. I’m sorry too. I forgot that you-I’m sorry.“  
  
Baekhyun frowned at him. “No. I was being whiny.”  
  
“I was too harsh.”  
  
Baekhyun’s lips twitched and he felt so silly. Kris smiled at him and shook his head.  
  
“Do you feel nauseated?” He asked.  
  
“No.” Baekhyun answered.  
  
“I don’t think it is sunstroke.”  
  
“I’m just tired it’s all.”  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
They ended up having their lunch there. Sharing a can of beans in the middle of a dessert probably wasn’t the smartest idea.  
  
“I think I got more sand in my mouth instead of beans.” Baekhyun mumbled, feeling the ashen taste in his mouth.  
Kris chuckled. “Me too.”  
  
“What do you think waiting for us beyond this?” Kris asked with mouth full of beans. Baekhyun wanted to laugh at him so he shoved more beans-sand to his mouth.  
  
“I don’t know. I think an oasis will wait for us beyond this.”  
  
“An oasis?”  
  
“It’s a small area in a dessert that has a supply of water.”  
  
“Like a pool?”  
  
“Yeah like a pool, only it’s surrounded by trees. Lots of trees.”  
  
“I’d like it if we find an oasis after this.”  
  
“Me too.”  
  
They walked again. Baekhyun insisted he would be the one who carried the pack now and Kris reluctantly agree. Kris made sure Baekhyun didn’t fall too far behind him. And they were sharing ideas about what awaited them beyond the dessert.  
  
“I like the town idea.” Kris said. “I like the idea that there would be people waiting for us.”  
  
Baekhyun agreed with every fiber of his being.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
He was back in the fire. It surrounded him. His consciousness snapped at him - find your parents!  
  
So he did. It was dark. He couldn’t see. Smoke everywhere.  
  
“Mom! Dad!” he ran and ran and ran. He didn’t remember having a long hallway in his house. “Mom!”  
  
“The fireplace!” It was his father’s voice.  
  
“Dad!”  
  
“It’s the fireplace Baekhyun ran!”  
  
“No! Dad! Where are you?!”  
  
Someone grabbed him. Baekhyun fought them off. But it was a feeble attempt. They had him strapped to a bed. They wore white lab coats. He knew this. He knew what they would do.  
  
The tallest one - he held a big needle. Baekhyun screamed. He knew this. He knew what they would do. The man stabbed the needle into his neck. The fluids running down his veins. Weird, he remembered it burning his body. But it was cold. The fluids were cold. His whole body was cold. Get them out! Get them-  
  
“Baekhyun! Wake up!”  
  
Baekhyun bolted upright. His brain was swimming in unforgotten waves of pain. He stared wide-eyed at the man before him and scrambled backwards.  
  
“Don’t take me back there! Don’t!”  
  
“Baekhyun? It was just a nightmare!”  
  
“You are part of them!” He yelled, hoarse and confused. His body flushed but it was so cold.  
  
Understanding dawned on Kris’ face. “I’m not. Baekhyun I’m no longer part of them. I’m here. I’m with you.”  
  
He was breathing hard and the vision between his nightmare and Kris’ face in front of him kept changing.  
  
“You were dreaming. You are safe.” Kris said. Baekhyun looked at him, the balled fists at his sides, the furrow buried in his brow, the tension in his jaw, and the concern that swam deep inside those orbs.  
  
He shut his eyes tight. Get a grip. Get a grip. Get a grip. It is Kris. He helps you. He helps you now.  
  
“It was a dream.” He whispered more to convince himself.  
  
“Yeah. It was.” Kris hesitantly took a step closer to Baekhyun. When the smaller stayed put he sat beside him.  
  
“Your face is flushed.” He said. He hover his hand above Baekhyun’s head and Baekhyun stared at him, immobile. Kris then placed his hand on Baekhyun’s forehead. baekhyun tried so hard not to flinch.  
  
“Fever.” He mumbled. Kris moved to grab something out of the pack. It was the medical kit, and a bottle of water. He grabbed something-a pill-and handed it to Baekhyun.  
  
Baekhyun bit his lips and accepted the pill. He swallowed it and drank the water. He exhaled shakily and lied again on the sand.  
  
“You’re shivering.” Kris noted.  
  
He was. Badly.  
  
“Do you want me to-I can-“ Kris moved awkwardly near him. Baekhyun watched the man in confusion. He lied close beside Baekhyun. He then turned to face him and wrapped his arm hesitantly around the smaller’s waist. Baekhyun instantly went rigid. His first instinct was to fought him, to struggle and broke away from the man’s hold. But his body was locked up, he couldn’t move.  
  
“It’s okay. Sleep now.” Kris muttered. His breath ruffled Baekhyun’s hair.  
  
It was warm. Kris was so warm. It was the right amount of warm. It was like the soft glow of sun rays. It was like a lukewarm bath.  
  
It took him a full minute before he relaxed, limp in Kris’ hold. The taller man letting out a relief sigh and held him tighter.  
  
“It was just a dream. You weren’t there anymore. They can’t reach you. They can’t touch you. I’ll protect you from them.”  
  
Baekhyun gripped Kris’ sweater so tight he thought he would tear the fabric. He swallowed his sob and closed his eyes. Kris’ smell invading him, his hold, his breath, it was surrounding him.  
  
And it was so calm.  
  
Peaceful.  
  
The dessert didn’t seem as scary. He was safe.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
It was a whole new experience - waking up in someone else’s hold. It was strange, when his consciousness came back to him the first thing Baekhyun realized was the breaths that tickling his nape. The second was the rise and fall of someone else’s chest. The third was warmth - body heat. The fourth was one big arm that slung carelessly on top his waist, and another arm cushioned his head - a makeshift pillow. The fifth was Kris’ distinct smell.  
  
It was still dark, there was only predawn light helping him scanning Kris’ fingers. They were long and big. His palms were callous. Baekhyun’s fingers looked so dainty compared to them. He wanted to touch them. So he did. A light tap and he removed his hand quickly.  
  
God-you are stupid. Stupid and embarrassing. He mentally thought.  
  
Kris’ fingers twitched, Baekhyun bit his lip. The man exhaled long. He was awake.  
  
The first thing Kris did was to press his palm flat on Baekhyun’s forehead.  
  
“The fever is gone.” He mumbled with sleep laced voice. His breath fanning Baekhyun’s nape and the smaller shivered.  
  
“It must be the freaky super-healing-self cells in my body at works.”  
  
Kris sat up and Baekhyun turned his head. The blond man was staring at him in amusement.  
  
“Did you sleep well?” Kris asked. Baekhyun could swear-even if it was so dark-he could see the pink on Kris’ cheeks.  
  
“Yes. You?”  
  
“Very well.”  
  
It wasn’t his heart that was leaping to his throat. It wasn’t his heart that was pounding so fast inside his ribs.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
When they started to walk again that day, they walked side by side. They weren’t touching, there was even a huge gap between them, but Baekhyun felt close. He felt closer to Kris. It seemed like he got to know the man better.  
  
He didn’t know what it meant. His feelings for Kris. He didn’t know what it meant and didn’t know what changed and why; from his feelings toward him before and now. He didn’t want to analyze it.  
  
“What was your house like?” Baekhyun asked, half curiosity, half trying to distract him from his thoughts and the fact there were no signs that they would see anything other than sand for the rest of the day.  
  
Kris shrugged. “Like any other house in any regions. Small, no yard.”  
  
“What about the apartment complex?”  
  
“I don’t know much about them. They’re usually for metropolis people who lived in regions, for work and stuff.”  
  
“Isn’t region 3 has like this big corn field?”  
  
Kris smiled at Baekhyun, at his sudden questions attack. “It’s not that big. And we stopped producing good corns years ago. We tried to grow wheat but it was hard. We had been depended on metropolis since then.”  
  
“What do you think happen now that even metropolis short in food?”  
  
“I’m not sure.” Kris helped Baekhyun when the shorter man tripped on his foot. Baekhyun mumbled his thanks. “Things are getting chaotic for sure. People will do anything to get food. They would attack metropolis, there would be riots, and the resistance would gain a lot of new members.”  
  
“Why did you join the resistance?”  
  
Kris frowned, staring at nothing in front of him. “My father and my sister caught the plague.”  
  
“Sorry.” Baekhyun said for the lack of better words. He bit his lip-not knowing if he touched a sensitive subject. But Kris shrugged again, brushing it off. “They went to region 6 to help our uncle, but they caught the plague and the guards wouldn’t let him passed the gate. They died without any help.” He exhaled and took a deep breath. “Anyway, my mother got depressed and soon she was too fragile to function, too fragile to live. And I well I didn’t know what I should do, no jobs available, I hated the metropolis, I decided to join the resistance.”  
  
Baekhyun thought about that time Kris announced that his parents were dead in his torturous cell. It was so blunt-matter of factly-like death was just other passing news.  
  
Baekhyun wondered, if he was surrounded by so many deaths, deaths of the people who meant the world to him, he would be like that too.  
  
“I don’t want your pity.” Kris suddenly said staring at Baekhyun with a hard expression. Baekhyun stared back at him, gaze unflinching.  
  
“I don’t pity you. I got kidnapped by the resistance and was tortured for months. I’m not capable of pitying people other than myself.”  
  
Oddly, Kris laughed. Loud and boisterous. Baekhyun felt his lips twitched. He couldn’t believe there would come a day that he would laugh at what happened to him. It was insane. He was so depressed, so exhausted and now he wanted to laugh at those torturous months. Laughed with the man who was part of those torturous months.  
  
It was probably because the sun. The sun drove him crazy. The heat messed with his mind. Or it was just Kris. It was probably because of that laugh.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
They ran out of water that evening. They sat, slumped on the sand, too tired to move, too tired to think about it meant that they wouldn’t last long in this dessert.  
  
“If I die, find me a nice looking rock, not the one full of holes, but the big and awesome looking one.” Baekhyun said, staring forlornly at the empty bottle in front of him.  
  
“If you die, I’d be too tired to even bother with your body.”  
  
Baekhyun chuckled, “well then, if I die, you should just lie beside me because your death will also come soon.”  
  
“I think that’d be nice.” Kris replied.  
  
Baekhyun was caught off guard. He stared at the man beside him, at the serious expression on his face. His jaw hard but his eyes had something flickering in them.  
  
Baekhyun realized then that Kris meant what he said.  
  
And maybe, maybe Baekhyun too, maybe he meant what he said.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
”I’m going to die first.” Kris wheezed. Baekhyun turned his head at Kris who walked slowly behind him. His skin horribly flushed, and there were sun burns everywhere on it. Kris’ breaths came in a short puff, and his pupils dilated.  
  
“Do you want to stop here?” Baekhyun asked, worried.  
  
“No.” Kris wheezed again. “We have to keep walking no use in resting.”  
  
Kris swayed and Baekhyun hurriedly came to him. He sneaked his arms to hold Kris’ waist making sure the man stayed upright.  
  
“Sorry.” Kris said - it sounded more like sorrreehh. They walked again, with Baekhyun half-dragging half-delirious Kris.  
  
Kris started mumbling then, incoherent rants. Baekhyun caught words like his mother, the resistance, Suho, his name-Baekhyun, and fucking dessert.  
  
Baekhyun himself couldn’t even feel his body anymore. It was like his mind already far detached from his body, and he watched his limbs moved from the outside.  
  
He vaguely thought.  
  
Could his super-healing-self cells help him now?  
  
But he remembered how tired he was at the resistance’s hideout and maybe his freaky cells couldn’t heal that kind of pain.  
  
He wondered again, could he die?  
  
Of course silly, his mind answered for him.  
  
He took one step, another step, another step, his knees shaking, another step, another step, Kris was too heavy, another step, another step, another step, another-  
  
He collapsed dragged by Kris’ limp body. He fell heavily on top of Kris’ hard chest and the man’s wheeze.  
  
“Sorry.” He mumbled. He moved and forced himself to sit upright.  
  
Kris had his eyes close. He was still breathing-but it was slow; barely there.  
  
This was it. Baekhyun thought. This was it. The end of them. The finish line. Finale.  
  
He stared at Kris, drinking his feature like how he would drink if someone poured cold water onto him now. He gulped a mouthful and a mouthful of Kris’ thick  sharp eyebrows, he gulped at the slope of that pointy nose, at his cheekbones, at his eyelids; he imagined those eyes opened-dark orbs staring intently at him; he gulped a mouthful of his lips; imagined it opened to a smile - gums showing.  
  
“You’re gorgeous.” He mumbled.  
  
Those lips gave a weak twitch and Baekhyun felt a hand - weak but firm - grasped his own. He clutched that hand back, still looking at Kris.  
  
He didn’t know how long he did that. But he was suddenly so tired, so dizzy, so lightheaded, faint, muzzy, woozy, so he lied his burning bones, skins, muscles, there, close beside Kris.  
  
He looked up at the sky-at the blinding sun; the unforgiving sun.  
  
His eyes hurt, his vision blurred, there were tears in there.  
  
He gripped Kris’ hand tighter.  
  
Kris didn’t respond.  
  
Baekhyun closed his eyes. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale-  
  
Footsteps?  
  
More than one.  
  
Lots of footsteps.  
  
And voices?  
  
Voices.  
  
“Get the other man.” First voice said.  
  
“I think they are dead.” Second voice said.  
  
“No, not this one. Though the other probably is.” Third voice said.  
  
Someone took Kris from beside him. He wanted to scream no! Give him back! But he couldn’t find his voice. Where was his voice? Where was his throat?  
  
Someone touched his neck. Cool fingertips.  
  
And it was dark.

 

 

 

 

 

 

He woke up drenched in a soft glow of bedside lamps. A dull, cottony feel. The ceiling on top of him was white and the light bulb was so pretty. He rolled to his side and stiffened when there was someone staring at him.  
  
It was somewhat familiar.  
  
He tried to move his hand and was so so so glad when it hovered above his face.  
  
“I’m not strapping you to the bed if that’s what you’re wondering.” The man said.  
  
Baekhyun jerked and sat upright. “Who are you?”  
  
“Minseok.”  
  
Baekhyun squinted at him.  
  
“I found you on the dessert.”  
  
Dessert.  
  
“Where is my-where is-“ Baekhyun gasped, eyes wild with fear, heart thudding and blood rushing.  
  
“Your boyfriend is okay. He is in the next room.”  
  
Baekhyun didn’t bother to correct the man. He jumped out of bed, almost crumbled because his weak knees, but he walked-wobbling-trying to get out of the room.  
  
The man blocked his way. “You can’t see him yet. He is still unconscious.”  
  
“I need to see him! I need to-“  
  
“Baekhyun!”  
  
A familiar voice-it tugged on his memory. A rusty part on his brain.  
  
A short man came into his view. The man stared wide-eyed, delighted, at him.  
  
Baekhyun was thrown back into those days he spent at class. Of a guy sitting a couple seats in front of him, absorbed in a thick tact and diplomacy book. The man was in another place in his memory too. A gala. His father introduced him to his co-worker and there was that man, beside his father’s co-worker, smiling shyly at him.  
  
“Jongdae?”  
  
“You remember me!” Jongdae rushed to him and Baekhyun immediately scrambled backwards. The man gave him a sheepish smile.  
  
“Sorry.” Jongdae mumbled.  
  
“Where-where am I?”  
  
“You’re in Nevada.”  
  
“Nev-what?” Baekhyun stared at Jongdae like the man had lost his mind.  
  
“At least that’s what the sign tell when I first got here.” Jongdae shrugged. “You’re in the land outside the border, in a small town where the old generation lived.”  
  
“A town where the old generation lived?”  
  
“Yeah, sit down, sit down, come on you’re still weak.” Jongdae dragged Baekhyun to the bed by his elbow. Baekhyun flinched trying to get the man to let go of him but jongdae didn’t budge.  
  
“I can’t I need to see Kris!”  
  
“Your boyfriend is fine. Still unconscious though, Yixing is taking care of him.”  
  
Who the fuck is yixing?!  
  
“He is our doctor” Jongdae said answering Baekhyun’s unspoken question.  
  
“Well I’ll leave him to you then. Don’t give him too much information, he just woke up.” Minseok said, already leaving the room.  
  
“Got it!” Jongdae shouted at the man’s retreating back.  
  
He pulled Baekhyun to the bed, forced him to sit. Baekhyun sat, right on the very edge, ready to bolt.  
  
“How is he? How is Kris?”  
  
“Awfully dehydrated. Yixing took care of that and the wound in his arm too.”  
  
Baekhyun exhaled a long relief sigh. “When can I see him?”  
  
“Soon. I’ll take you there.” Jongdae promised. Baekhyun sighed.  
  
He looked around the room he was in. The room looked really nice. The wall was painted soft blue-a color that his nation people would never use to paint their walls. The furniture wasn’t matched, like the owner had put every comfortable furniture they could find and placed it haphazardly in one room.  
  
“How did you find this place?” Baekhyun asked in wonder.  
  
“Minseok, the man who was here, told my father. He was the son of my father’s best friend. He uh he was from region 7, one of the first victims of the plague. He caught the plague, stole a cure and ran here, to the land outside the border. He knew the government would burn his region. He knew the plague would spread, fast. He had nowhere to go so he ran here, almost didn’t make it alive. He was half dead before he found this town. Practically dragged himself here. Then he found a house, with the pipe still worked. I don’t know how could he survive, I mean I’ve been in that dessert and it was hell, Minseok, he walked here from region 7, I just couldn’t imagine how he survived. And well he called my father.         There was something happened in metropolis.” At this, Jongdae looked at Baekhyun with an unreadable look. Baekhyun frowned at him. Jongdae coughed and continued his story. “I moved here then with my father, brought as many people as we could. Not much, most of them didn’t believe us. We drove here, that’s why I’m still alive. We tried to tell more people about this place, we still do, but it’s hard. Can’t risk the resistance or the government to know, wouldn’t want another chaos.”  
  
Baekhyun gritted his teeth, kind of pissed these people kept this town a secret. People died in their nation, more as the day passed, more as they talked here.  
  
“What happen out there, in the nation?” He asked instead.  
  
“Bad. So bad.” Jongdae sighed. “The resistance and the government are at war. The plague worsened and food shortage too.”  
  
He thought about Suho, about the others, he shook his head. Later, think about it later.  
  
“How many people live here?”  
  
“Around eighty? I don’t know I lost count. I told you we try to tell people. They just don’t want to believe us.”  
  
Baekhyun mum, mulling it over.  
  
“What do you mean something happened in metropolis that made you and your father moved here?” Baekhyun asked, remembering Jongdae’s off expression.  
  
“That uh my father will explain it to you.” Jongdae clasped Baekhyun’s shoulder and the latter flinched. “He has so much to tell you. Come later to the dining room for dinner.”  
  
Baekhyun gave a curt nod and got up. “Can I see Kris now?”  
  
“Miss your boyfriend that much?” Jongdae muttered under his breath. Baekhyun chose to ignore him. “It’s this way.”  
  
They walked out of the room to a small hallway. Baekhyun stared in awe at the paintings adorn the walls. There was a painting of a small girl in a swing set. There was a painting of ducks in what looked like a pool-no not a pool, a pond. There was a painting of old couple sitting together on a bench. And there was a door.  
  
Jongdae knocked before he opened the door.  
  
“You come at the right time! He just woke up!” Someone greeted him when Baekhyun sneaked inside the room.  
  
His gaze fell straight to Kris.  
  
Baekhyun felt something in his ribs  _moved._  
  
The man was pale, his cheeks gaunt. He sat on the bed, head leaning at the headboard. His gaze pierced Baekhyun’s eyes.  
  
He could just stand rooted in his spot.  
  
“Okay, Yixing, I think we better leave them alone.” Jongdae said.  
  
“Don’t forget to drink the medicine. And drink all the water!” the man who was called Yixing told Kris, but Kris just nodded never taking his gaze off of Baekhyun.  
  
He vaguely could hear the sound of a door being opened and closed. Silence enveloped them.  
  
“Hey.” Kris croaked finally.  
  
“Hey.” Baekhyun rasped.  
  
“Come here.” Kris gestured weakly to a spot beside him on the bed. Baekhyun walked his stiff feet and sat there.  
  
“How are you?” Kris asked.  
  
“Better than you I guess.” Baekhyun answered noting how talking seemed like taking a lot of energy from Kris.  
  
“I feel awful.” Kris grimaced.  
  
“You look awful.”  
  
Kris gave a weak chuckle. “You said I’m gorgeous.”  
  
Baekhyun sucked in a sharp breath. “You-“  
  
“I heard you. Clearly.” The man laughed, his eyes crinkling, gums showing.  
  
“I was delirious.” Baekhyun rolled his eyes trying to hide the fact that his cheeks warmed.  
  
“Sure you were.” Kris scoffed.  
  
“Did that man, Yixing, explained to you where we are?” Baekhyun asked in his attempt to avert the embarrassing subject.  
  
Kris knew what he did because he gave Baekhyun that lips twitching and amused look. Baekhyun scowled at him. Kris chuckled again. “Yeah he did. The town full of people waiting beyond the dessert, huh.”  
  
Baekhyun remembered their conversation. He sighed. “Yeah. Not exactly what I imagined though.”  
  
Kris’ hand found his and he held it. Baekhyun missed his warmth. His callous palms. The way his hand covered his.  
Baekhyun held his hand back, tightly.  
  
“I’m glad you’re okay.” Kris whispered, voice soft, eyes soft. Baekhyun nodded, smiling, he was too.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
The dining room was big. There was a long square table in the middle of the room; with eleven chairs surrounding it. There were already people there when Baekhyun and Kris walked inside.  
  
A familiar man sitting at the center of the table. Baekhyun recognized him. It was Jongdae’s father. Beside him sat Minseok. Baekhyun recognized Jongdae. The man who sat beside him threw a small smile to Kris that the latter replied so that must be Yixing. Baekhyun didn’t recognize the other 3 strangers.  
  
“Baekhyun.” The man greeted him. He looked exactly like Jongdae. High cheekbones and short figure. “Are you feeling better son?”  
  
“Yes. Thank you sir.” Baekhyun answered awkwardly giving the man tight lipped smile.  
  
“Sit down. You too, son.” He said to Kris. They both sat side by side on the vacant seats in front of Jongdae and Yixing.  
  
Baekhyun watched as they distributing bowls of something to every person on the table. Jongdae gave him a bowl and Baekhyun nodded his thanks.  
  
It was a bowl of soup.  
  
Corn soup.  
  
Baekhyun turned his head at Kris and saw the man froze, staring at his bowl with longing-yearning-so great etched on his face. Baekhyun’s heart ached for him. He grasped Kris’ hand under the table. Kris jolted, turned to Baekhyun and gave him a small, sad smile. He squeezed Baekhyun’s hand before grabbing a spoon to eat his soup.  
  
There was a murmur conversation here and there.  
  
Baekhyun took a sip of his soup letting the rich sweet taste exploded in his taste buds. He almost let out a happy squeal. It had been so long-god too long since the last time he ate proper food. Screw mannerism, he grabbed his bowl and drank from it. It tasted so good, so nice, he wanted to eat it for the rest of his life.  
  
Baekhyun caught Kris’ glance at him and he grinned at the taller. Kris’ eyes widened a fraction and he responded Baekhyun’s grin a tad bit slower.  
  
When the dinner was over Baekhyun was sure he wouldn’t be able to walk again. His stomach was so full, filled to the brim.  
  
“Baekhyun.” Jongdae’s father called. Baekhyun looked at the man and found him walking toward him. Baekhyun stood up.  
  
“You look more and more like your father as you grow up.” He said when he stood right in front of Baekhyun, he held his shoulder and smiled at him like how his own father used to smile at him before. His heart clenched painfully.  
  
“I want to talk to you.” The man suddenly said. “In my office.”  
  
Baekhyun furrowed his brow. “Uh sure. Okay.” He said intelligently.  
  
Minseok approached them and stopped beside Jongdae’s father. “Your boyfriend can’t come.”  
  
“If I can’t come Baekhyun can’t come too. I’m not leaving him alone with you.” Kris said so close to him. Baekhyun startled and found Kris stood right behind him-jaw tensed, eyes hard and hands clenched into fist.  
  
“He can come. Whatever you want to say to me he can listen to it.” Baekhyun finally said. He could hear Kris exhaled behind him.  
  
Minseok scoffed mockingly and glared at Kris.  
  
“He could come.” Jongdae’s father decided-beckoning them to follow him. “My office is right at the end of this hallway.”  
  
They walked into a short hallway. No paintings in this hallway. But there is a huge flower vas in front of a lone door. Jongdae’s father pushed the door and it opened with a creak.  
  
The office was fairly small, but there were a lot of expensive looking things in it. Mahogany table, thick Persian carpet, floor to ceiling bookshelf, comfortable looking arm chairs, and there was one painting on the wall-a bird, a huge bird. Baekhyun never saw a bird since he turned 8.  
  
Kris sneered beside him. Baekhyun knew what he thought. While people were on the verge of extinction from the plague and food shortage, these people lived lavishly.  
  
“Sit down.” Jongdae’s father gestured to the armchairs in front of the mahogany table. The old man moved to sit on a big armchair behind the table.  
  
Baekhyun shuffled his feet awkwardly. He glanced at Kris, seeing the man glaring daggers at the bird painting on the wall refusing to budge. Minseok also stood up, near Jongdae’s father opposite them.  
  
Baekhyun then sat down and cleared his throat. Jongdae’s father smiled at him seemingly to be aware of the tense atmosphere.  
  
“I’ve known your father for more than 10 years.” He began. Baekhyun frowned silently wondering where this talk about his father would lead. “We met in metropolis main academy before we got accepted to work in metropolis main lab. He was a smart man, very smart. Very kind too, always taking care of the juniors. I’m so sorry about his passing, and your mother too-such a beautiful and gentle lady.” He added, smiling apologetically at Baekhyun.  
  
Baekhyun shrugged-the same way Kris shrugged when Baekhyun said sorry about his father and his sister.  
  
“He was one of my very dear friends. We were so close during our time in academy, and again when we worked together in metropolis main lab. We were one of the very best too.” He chuckled. Eyes lost in memory. But then his eyes turned dim when he continued, “we were promoted into a higher position, working specifically under the government, working for top secret projects. We were so proud. Not everyone got offered the opportunity. It was called the fireplace, a secret department for secret projects.”  
  
Baekhyun stunned. He knew that word. He knew. He heard it. His father’s shaky voice. Fire. Was it on his dream? No. No it wasn’t just on his dream. His father said it. Yes. He did. During the fire.  
  
Baekhyun opened his mouth to ask but Jongdae’s father waved his hand. “We’ll get there dear, I’ll talk about it soon.”  
The man’s voice turned sad, hard edged. “We were 52 when we first got our most important project. It was to create a new form of food, artificial food that contained nutrition, protein, basically everything a human body needed. That time food shortage became a serious problem, and we were desperate so desperate to make it come true. It was a hard project. We spent hours, days, months, in a farm or field experimenting on plants and animals. I-I didn’t know exactly what happened, but your father found something in his experiment. He was experimenting with a lot of chemicals, heavy and dangerous chemicals. And it resulted in a serum. One day, he told me that his experiment worked. It worked on our two lab rats and he said he was ready to try it on a bigger animals. So he starved a cow, he starved it and then he injected it with the serum. Something went wrong and the cow dead. Bleed to death.”  
  
Baekhyun gasped. He could see where this was going. He could see-no. No. His vision shaking. His hands trembling.  
  
“It was the plague.” Jongdae’s father stated. “Your father found the plague. Or I could say, he created it.”  
  
Baekhyun felt so dizzy. His stomach clenched. His fist clenched. His eyes wide in shock. His mouth wide in shock. There was something-cold freezing-swarmed his entire body.  
  
“Baekhyun.” Kris whispered somewhere. He wanted to latch into that voice. He wanted to but he couldn’t. He couldn’t move.  
  
“It started to spread to the other cows.” Jongdae’s father continued. Baekhyun wanted to yell at him to stop talking. He wanted to cover his ears. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t. “Strangely, your father didn’t get infected. He checked himself, thinking that it only affected the animals. But he realized maybe that was because all of the antibiotics inside his body. He had injected himself with a lot of antibiotics and other things. He found the plague at the same time he found the cure.”  
  
Baekhyun was going to be sick. He was going to hurl the content of his stomach here, on the expensive Persian carpet.  
  
“He wanted to hide it. He tried so hard to destroy it but he didn’t know how. It spread to the animals already. And it spread fast. He told me. Asked me to help him. But I didn’t know how. Didn’t have the slightest idea. We tried to inject them with the cure but somehow it didn’t work on the animals, the cure. They still died.” The man took a heavy breath then. “The government found out about it. We thought that they would help us destroyed the plague, but no they wanted your father to create more of that serum that caused the plague.”  
  
“What?!” It didn’t come from him. It came from Kris-it was loud, outraged, skeptical, scared.  
  
“We had been in a food shortage, for quite a long time. A lot of regions couldn’t make their own food, they were all, they are all still so depended on the metropolis. And metropolis ran out of supplies. There were just too many people and so little food. So they decided to reduce population.”  
  
Kris let out a string of curses-few that Baekhyun never heard of it. Baekyun was still silent. Detached, alone in his bubble of horror.  
  
“They planned to spread the plague. Your father and I found out about it. Your father refused, of course, and he threatened to spill the government’s plan to the public. The government couldn’t stand still. Your father knew, he knew something would happen to him soon. He told me to leave the metropolis, the region and I asked him why. He told me the government, the fireplace would try to shut us up, in any possible way. And he-your father-he injected the cure to his son. In the hope his son would never get infected. In the hope that his son, his smart son, would figure it out soon and helped his mother and a lot of people to cure themselves from the plague.”  
  
Baekhyun was really going to be sick.  
  
No he was already sick.  
  
He crumbled to the floor, entire body shaking.  
  
He opened his mouth and poured all the contents of his stomach there. He gagged, his stomach churned. He let everything out. His face drenched. He was crying.  
  
“Baekhyun.” Kris was right beside him, crouching down like him. Baekhyun shoved him away. He kept heaving. Again and again until what came out of his mouth was bile.  
  
Someone touched his forehead. Brushing his hair from his face. Familiar hands. Kris.  
  
“Get Yixing.” Jongdae’s father said. Someone rushed out of the room.  
  
“Ssshh..”Kris shoved him into his arms. Face tucked under his chin. He rocked Baekhyun back and forth trying to calm him. But Baekhyun couldn’t. His throat clogged. His heart hurt. His stomach twisted. His tears wouldn’t stop. “I’m here. Baekhyun please..” Kris plead, his voice sounded desperate.  
  
“They killed my parents.” Baekhyun gasped. “My father-he-“ he broke into another loud sob. Kris tightened his hold pressing his lips to the crown of Baekhyun’s head. He whispered a lot of things to him. Soothing murmur. Baekhyun couldn’t catch it. Kris’ mouth moved rapidly on his head.  
  
“Let me see him.” Someone said. There were hands, trying to take him from Kris. Baekhyun shook his head, burying himself further in Kris’ hold. “I have to take him into his room.”  
  
“I’ll carry him.” Kris said with a cold voice. Kris hoisted him up. Carried him so carefully, so gently in his arms.  
  
They walked into a room. Baekhyun couldn’t see. His tears made everything blurry. Kris tried to put him down on something. Baekhyun gripped his neck so hard refusing to let go. “I’m here. I’m here okay? I would never leave you. You need to lie down but I’m here, right beside you.”  
  
Baekhyun sobbed but he let Kris lied him down, slowly, to the bed.  
  
“I need to sedate him.” That voice said again. Baekhyun sighed wanting it. Wanting the silent and peace of darkness to encompass him. Wanting to be free from this pain.  
  
He felt Kris moved and he whimpered-blindly trying to reach his hand. Kris’ hand finally enveloped his. His heart slowed.  
  
“Yixing needs to sedate you. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be the first person-anything-you see when you wake up.”  
  
Baekhyun reluctantly released Kris’ hand.  
  
He felt a familiar prick.  
  
He felt a familiar darkness.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Kris was the first person - first anything - Baekhyun saw when he opened his eyes.  
  
He looked at those dark orbs staring intently at him-so many emotions-affection, worry, concern, fondness, sadness; sad for him, anguish, desperation-flickering in them.  
  
“I never knew your eyes are so dark. They’re like the color of midnight.” Was the first thing that came out of Baekhyun’s mouth. Kris smiled then. He pushed wayward hair out of Baekhyun’s face and planted a soft light kiss to his forehead.  
  
“You’re so strong.” Kris whispered into his forehead. His lips caressing Baekhyun’s skin. His words caressing deep inside Baekhyun’s heart. “You were so strong. And you will be strong still. You will be okay.”  
  
Baekhyun wanted to cry again.  
  
He dragged Kris’ face back to him; wanting so desperately to see those eyes, those lips, those expressions that brought warmth, warmth and peace and safety to his entire self.  
  
“You’re the strongest person I know. And if you break, Baekhyun, if you break I will be here for you. I will be strong for you so you can lean on me. You can trust me to piece you back together.”  
  
Something exploded in him. It exploded and lurched - grating his ribs painfully.  
  
When his first tear fell, Kris caught it with his thumb. When the second tear fell, Kris brushed it away with his lips.  
  
“You have me. You have me completely.” Kris croaked with a shaky voice. “And I want to, I need to have you completely too.”  
  
Baekhyun choked on his sob, he clutched Kris’ shirt and pulled hard, slamming his lips onto the taller man’s. Kris made a noise in the back of his throat before he slammed his lips back as fiercely.  
  
It was messy, helpless and desperate. Baekhyun was reveling the feeling of Kris’ soft lips against him. The swiped of his tongue against Baekhyun’s bottom lip. Kris licked his lips insistently asking for an opening. Baekhyun opened his mouth willingly and their tongues curled together. Kris’ hands were on his jaw, on his neck. Baekhyun’s hands were buried deep in those thick blond strands. Kris harsh breath was hitting his nose, his cheeks, his lips, his mouth and he wanted more and more and more and more.  
  
Baekhyun broke their kiss to plant kisses in the corner of Kris’ lips, his strong jaw, his soft lips and Kris’ eyes fluttered shut marveled in Baekhyun’s touch.  
  
“You can have me.” Baekhyun panted. “Completely. Kris you can have me.”  
  
Kris’ eyes opened and Baekhyun could see his reflection staring back at him.  
  
Kris’ face was a thousand of emotions running overlapping each other and gone in the split of second before he held Baekhyun so tight. So tight he didn’t know which one was his body which one was Kris’.  
  
“Thank you.” Kris’ voice was the barest of whisper heavy with emotion.  
  
Baekhyun caressed his nape. He gave his answer by kissing the soft skin under Kris’ ear, softly, carefully, the barest of touch.  
  
Kris’ hand slipped inside his shirt and Baekhyun jolted. Kris leaned back and pressed his lips on Baekyun’s in a form of chaste kiss. He then dragged his lips, brushing Baekhyun’s jaw, his neck and stopped on his collar bone.  
  
“I’ve been wanting to touch you.” He murmured hoarse, lips tickling Baekhyun’s skin. “I’ve been wanting to hold you close so close there was nothing between us.” He roamed his hands under Baekhyun’s shirt. And Baekhyun shuddered, his skin was burning-not burning like the fluids in his veins, not burning like the piercing sun on the dessert, it was the pleasant kind of burn; the kind of burn that made him wanted to pull Kris closer and closer and closer; the kind of burn that made him wanted more and more and more.  
  
“Kris.” He rasped when the taller man sucked the skin on his throat. He pressed into Kris with a small groan. Kris’ head dipped lower grazing Baekhyun’s skin with his lips until it stopped on the low cut of his shirt.  
  
“Can I-“ Kris asked tugging at Baekhyun’s thin shirt.  
  
“Yeah.” He gasped. “Yeah.”  
  
Kris’ hands fumbled to get him out of his shirt, they were eager, nervous, excited, anxious. Baekhyun held himself up to let the shirt slipped out of his head. He laid there bare, basking in Kris’ intense gaze.  
  
“You’re beautiful.” Kris whispered, his tone awe.  
  
“Stop staring at me.” He mumbled when Kris didn’t do anything except staring at his naked chest. He made a move to cover it before Kris gripped his wrist and pinned it above his head.  
  
“You’re flawless.” Kris muttered again. Flame spread to Baekhyun’s chest, to his neck, to his cheeks, to the root of his hair. Baekhyun opened his mouth to retort when Kris dipped his head low and grazed his nipple with his lips, he let out a loud gasp instead. His hand jerked on Kris’ grip.  
  
“Kris please.” He moaned, confused. He felt too much and he wanted to feel more. Kris’ warm wet mouth enveloped his nipple and sucked. Baekhyun arched his back scrambled to take a hold in Kris’ hair. Kris moved back to Baekhyun’s face and kissed him hungrily. Baekhyun tilted his head to get closer, tongue mapping the inside of Kris’ mouth, at his favorite gums, the back of his teeth, the roof of his mouth until he found Kris’ tongue and sucked it into his mouth.  
  
Kris grunted above him.  
  
The first friction against his clothed member had him gasped out loud and keened. Kris rubbed insistently against him-again and again, harder and harder, faster and faster.  
  
“Baekhyun.” Kris shoved his face on Baekhyun’s throat and moaned. The vibration sent blazing white pleasure straight to his member. He grinded back pulled Kris’ face by his nape to suck on his throat hard. Kris’ grip on his wrist tightened.  
Kris’ shirt brushed at his sensitive chest making him headed by pleasure.  
  
“Baekhyun.” Kris panted. “Baekhyun.”  
  
Their hips moved roughly, rutting roughly, rubbed roughly. Baekhyun closed his eyes feeling his head swimming, his head twirling, breath heavy, chest heavy, his member throbbed, and it felt so so good.  
  
Kris moved his hand to squeeze Baekhyun’s ass and he moaned. Cold fingers slipped inside the waistband of his pants. They touched his bare skin, kneading, squeezing and Kris pulled down Baekhyun’s pants along with his briefs. The taller man suddenly stopped moving and Baekhyun groaned opening his eyes to see Kris hovered above his erect member.  
  
“Kris.” He pleaded-he wanted Kris to touch him there, he wanted Kris not to.  
  
Kris’ lips ghosting over his member. And Baekhyun had to bit his lips so hard to stop the loud moan at the tip of his tongue when Kris took him in his mouth. Kris taking him more and more and more and he hit the back of the taller man’s throat. Baekhyun sobbed and shook his head wildly. Kris started to bob his head and he kept getting faster and faster and faster. Sweat trickling his forehead and Baekhyun curled his feet. Kris removed his mouth, Baekhyun stared at him half lidded, stared at his wet mouth, stared at his blown pupils. Kris then pushed his own pants, fumbling with his belt. Baekhyun hoisted himself up helping the man unzip his flies. Hesitantly he reached out and enveloped Kris’ hard leaking member in his hand. Kris tossed his head and groaned deep from his throat.  
  
“Baekhyun.” He rasped when the smaller man squeezed him. Kris held the base of Baekhyun’s member, creating tight ring with his hands and he moved it up and down and up and down and up and down. Baekhyun parroted his movement in steady pace.  
  
They kept getting faster and faster and faster and Kris captured his lips in a heated kiss. When Kris’ hand swiped the crack of his ass, Baekhyun shut his eyes and came, moan muffled by Kris’ mouth.  
  
It felt like the whole world was exploding outside his eyelids. It felt like he was floating for a split second didn’t know where he was didn’t who he was couldn’t feel his body, and the next second he fell limp. Spent. Satisfied. Pleased. Contented.  
  
Kris gave one last grunt before he too released his seed on Baekhyun’s hands and fell limp. Body heavy on top Baekhyun. He moved his head, pressed a soft kiss on Baekhyun’s small nose-grazing his cheek more than his nose-and smiled.  
  
“You are perfect.” He said. Baekhyun wanted to laugh at the silly grin that pulled Kris’ lips but he tapped the taller man’s cheek instead.  
  
“You’re heavy. Move.” He grumbled.  
  
Kris let out a breathless chuckle and moved his body, pulling Baekhyun with him and hugged him tight.  
  
“No Kris, I’m dirty.” Baekhyun struggled feeling the unpleasant wetness on his hands, on his stomach, on his thighs.  
  
“Well me too.” Kris brushed it off and tightened his hold instead. “It’s good they have bathroom here huh.” Kris buried his head in Baekhyun’s hair and nuzzled his head.  
  
“Wouldn’t peg you as a cuddler.” Baekhyun grumbled.  
  
Kris laughed again, his body shook and Baekhyun felt the rumble from his ear that pressed against Kris’ shirt.  
  
Baekhyun exhaled long and slipped a contented smile. He wrapped his arm around Kris’ middle letting the taller man’s body heat warmed his naked skin.  
  
“Now who is the cuddler?” Kris said. Baekhyun could picture the man’s smug look in his head and he swatted him.  
  
“Shut up and don’t ruin the moment.”  
  
They lied there in the darkness. Kris’ steady breath lulled him into a state where he either conscious or unconscious. He listened to Kris’ heartbeat. Strong inside his chest. He inhaled his smell. The distinct smell that reminded him of his small prison in the resistance hideout. Reminded him of two cubes of raw potato. Reminded him of watery soup. Reminded him of hard bread. Reminded him of cold metal gun pressed against his trembling hands. Reminded him of strong hug after hysterical fit. Reminded him of hot dessert sand. Reminded him of shared canned beans. Reminded him of cold water sloshed in his dry throat. Reminded him of confessions. Reminded him of kisses.  
  
Baekhyun thought about his long suffering that led into his place in Kris’ arms. He wouldn’t say it was worth it, he wouldn’t say what happened to him worth Kris’ protective arms. Because a lot of things happened to him, injustice, cruelty, even until the last time when he believed nothing bad would happen to him anymore.  
  
But he could say he willed to forget his pain. His suffering. The most torturous months in his life. He willed to forget and started anew with Kris. A blank page. No not entirely blank, just a page he could fill with things he wanted to fill.  
  
His freedom.  
  
“I had nightmares about you.” Kris suddenly said, voice small. His body tensed and his muscles stiff.  
  
“What nightmares?”  
  
Kris shuddered and Baekhyun pressed his lips onto the column of his neck. “I dreamt a lot of times that we are back at the hideout and you are strapped to that bed. But instead of Dr. Jung and the others, it was me who tortured you.”  
  
“Kris.” he breathed heart clenched and mouth dried.  
  
“It makes me sick. It makes me sick I was a part of that. I was part of the people who tortured you and hell I was one of them.” His voice rough and it pained Baekhyun’s ears, pained his heart.  
  
Baekhyun wanted to soothe him. Wanted to ease him. Wanted to lessen his guilt. Kris was the one who kept him sane. Kris was the one who saved him. Kris was the one who kept him alive, both his mental and physical.  
  
“I forgive you.” Baekhyun whispered. “Kris, I had forgiven you for so long.”  
  
Kris didn’t look at him. Didn’t move an inch, in fact. But Baekhyun could feel his ragged breath and the naked skin of Baekhyun’s nape damp.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
The houses in this town were so vibrant with colors. And huge. Most of them have yards. Yards with grasses and trees and flowers and what Jongdae told him as cactus. Baekhyun looked up at the blue sky. It wasn’t clear. But it was blue, he was so happy it wasn’t gray.  
  
He had been spending his morning walking around the streets that surrounding the house he was in. It was fascinating, everything in this town. It was like a whole new world. It made him feel like a place where a deadly plague killed a lot of people, a place where people killed for food, a place where his father was the cause of a nation catastrophe, a place where he was the cure for the catastrophe didn’t exist.  
  
And the wind felt so nice.  
  
“Why didn’t you wake me up.” a raspy sleep laced voice said from behind and Baekhyun was soon enveloped in a hug.  
  
“You sleep like dead.” He huffed. “Anyway you drooled on my chest.”  
  
“That is hot.”  
  
Baekhyun elbowed the man in the guts and Kris laughed, loud and ebullient. The sound pulled a smile out of Baekhyun’s lips.  
  
“I heard from Yixing that a lot of these houses are empty.” Kris suddenly said.  
  
“Are you asking me to move in with you? Because Kris we only slept together once.”  
  
Kris turned Baekhyun to face him and scowled at the smaller man. “You’re going to be an annoying little shit about this aren’t you?”  
  
Baekhyun laughed and he pecked Kris’ nose. “I want the yellow house.”  
  
“The yellow house?”  
  
“Yeah. The one at the end of this street. It reminded me of corn field.”  
  
Kris’ eyes widened and before Baekhyun could read the taller man’s expression he was already pulled into a hungry kiss.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
When they got inside the house there was a small commotion.  
  
People were gathering in the dining room and there were loud boisterous sounds. Baekhyun craned his neck to look what was going on but he couldn’t see past people’s heads and backs.  
  
“What happened?” He asked Kris.  
  
Kris frowned, “I don’t know. Jongdae’s father is in the middle of it.”  
  
Baekhyun noted the worried, scared, hopeful, scared, worried, scared, anxious expressions flittering on people’s faces.  
They walked closer to the crowd and heard Yixing spoke in a desperate voice, “we have to help them!”  
  
“Of course we have to but we also couldn’t risk them infecting us here!” another man answered, outraged.  
  
“What happened?” Kris asked to Jongdae, the closest one to them.  
  
“There are people in the dessert. Hundreds of people” Jongdae answered face contorted in a deep furrow and his jaw hard. Baekhyun froze. His heart was beating his ribs. Kris sucked in a sharp breath. “Half of them caught the plague. It’s a matter of time before they’re all dead.”  
  
“We have to help them!” Kris shouted incredulous.  
  
“We want to but we don’t have enough cures!”  
  
“But we can’t just let them died there!”  
  
“Do you want them to bring the plague here?! Do you want another ruined nation here?!”  
  
Baekhyun gulped. He knew what it meant. He knew it would lead to this. He thought about his father, about what Jongdae’s father told him.  
  
He knew he had to make a choice. Hundreds of people. Hundreds of lives. Hundreds of lives he could save.  
  
Baekhyun fisted his hands and took a shaky breath, “Use me.”  
  
Both Jongdae and Kris’ face snapped to him.  
  
“Baekhyun.” Kris hissed a warning.  
  
“Use me. You have doctor, Yixing, Yixing will find out how to use me.” Kris grabbed his body and forced him to look at the taller man’s outraged expression.  
  
“You know what it means.” He said through gritted teeth.  
  
He knew. Fire fluids. And injection. And injection. And injection. And pain. And pain. And pain.  
  
“We have no choice.” He said. “We can save them. We can bring them here there are a lot of empty houses. There could be a new future Kris.”  
  
Kris raked his hands through his hair and cursed.  
  
“Tell your father.” Baekhyun turned into a shock Jongdae.  
  
“Are you sure? I-“  
  
“Tell your father Jongdae please.”  
  
Jongdae opened and closed his mouth with a lost expression before he walked away to his father.  
  
“It’s going to be different than when I was in the resistance. I do this willingly, and Yixing, he seemed like a nice guy he will stop if I want him to stop.” Baekhyun said half to convince Kris, half to convince himself. “This is what my father wanted. This is what he meant for me to do.”  
  
Kris nodded, stiff, not looking at him.  
  
“Baekhyun.” He snapped his attention back to Jongdae’s father who was calling his name with a loud voice. People were staring at him. A lot expressions reflecting back at him-hopeful, hopeful, hopeful, doubt, scared, worried, hopeful, hopeful, hopeful.  
  
“Are you sure son?”  
  
“Yes I’m sure.” He answered.  
  
Jongdae’s father nodded seeming to accept that. “Yixing will do some test on your body.”  
  
Yixing approached him and gave him an encouraging smile. Baekhyun nodded his head-couldn’t reply his smile.  
  
“My clinic is that way.” Yixing led him into a small door leading into a hallway.  
  
“Baekhyun.” Baekhyun turned his head and saw Jongdae’s father was staring at him with unreadable expression. “Thank you. Your father will be so proud.”  
  
Baekhyun nodded again, stiff. He turned to follow Yixing when Kris’ hand clasped his left hand.  
  
“I’ll be with you.”  
  
Baekhyun squeezed that hand.  
  
  
  
  
It was painful.  
  
When he closed his eyes all he could feel were: pain, and pain, and pain, and pain. It was like his body was made from burning painful cells.  
  
But his heart was beating strongly in his chest. It didn’t flutter slowly, desperate to give up. Desperate for it to stop.  
  
There was hand clutching his left hand. There was hand brushing his sweaty bangs. There was a soothing murmur of encouragement.  
  
It wasn’t that bad. The pain.  
  
He thought about the lives he could save. Lives that they could bring here, into this peaceful town of sunny weather, blue sky, green trees, colors, big houses, food.  
  
Lives that could start a new future.  
  
And he, Baekhyun, took a part in making that happened.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
When he woke up, Kris wasn’t beside him.  
  
His body was hooked into a lot of machines. He tried to sit up but his muscles refused to budge. Baekhyun sighed, the familiar weakness.  
  
“Oh! You’re awake!” Yixing walked into the room carrying a glass of water and a medical kit.  
  
“Where-“ He cleared his throat. “Where is Kris?”  
  
“He helped on the dessert.” Yixing answered. He gave Baekhyun the glass of water and Baekhyun accepted it gratefully.  
  
“He didn’t want to leave your side but we need more help.”  
  
“How is-how is the cure?”  
  
“I could create it. The things inside your cells Baekhyun!” Yixing exclaimed excitedly. Baekhyun gave him a tight lipped smile. Yixing hoisted him up and helped him drank the water. “They carried the cures with them. I hope they’re saved. Those people. They couldn’t live in the nation anymore. It would be nice if people could move here.”  
  
“What’s going on? In the nation?”  
  
“Hopeless.” Yixing shook his head with a grim expression. “People died everywhere. At least that’s what I heard. I mean it’s that bad until hundreds of people decide to run to the land outside the border.”  
  
“What about the resistance?”  
  
“They are at war with the government. But that’s only worsened the situation. The plague is everywhere, hunger is everywhere, war is everywhere, it’s only time that our nation collapsed.”  
  
The collapse of their great nation.  
  
He never thought it would happen.  
  
The great metropolis. Looming over all regions. Intimidating skyscrapers. It would collapse.  
  
It was a dead nation already. When they decided to spread the plague. When they decided to kill their own people. How could they not expect it would lead to this. Hunger, war, deaths, deaths of so many innocent souls.  
  
“Do you think things will get better now that more people know about this town in the land outside the border?”  
  
“I don’t know. But I have hope.” Yixing smiled. “We have enough food. Good soil. Good weather. There would be no reason to fight. But we are only humans, we are blinded by so many emotions. There’s no guarantee that peace will finally come. There’s no guarantee that the future that we are all dream of will come true here. But we can hope.”  
  
Baekhyun smiled liking the sound of it.  
  
Hope.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
There were a lot of voices.  
  
Baekhyun jerked and immediately winced when something pricked his hand deeper. He forced opened his heavy lids and stared blearily to an iv drip attached to his hand.  
  
The voices were from the outside. And it kept getting louder and louder.  
  
Were they those people?  
  
It piqued his curiosity and Baekhyun removed his iv drip, holding flinched and moved out of his bed. His knees buckled and he had to hold the wall to stand. He walked-wobbled-outside to a dark hallway. The lamp in the room at the end of the hallway was on and the closer he got to that room the louder the voices got.  
  
He stopped at the entrance and stared at the amount of people in there.  
  
They were all looked terrible. Baekhyun’s stomach churned at the sight of a tiny little boy with an opened wound on his arm, there was a man covered in bruises, there was a man covered in his own blood, in fact there were a lot of men covered in their own blood, they were all covered in awful looking sunburns, there was a-  
  
Baekhyun’s stomach plummeted to his feet. He couldn’t believe his eyes. He couldn’t believe-  
  
“Suho?” He rasped. His voice was small but it attracted people who stood closest to him. They turned their heads and finally the man, the man who looked exactly like Suho turned his head to him, and Baekhyun’s breath left him in a whoosh.  
  
The man looked terrible. No, terrible was an understatement. The man was so thin. Every patch of his skin was covered by sunburns. His eyes were puffy, swollen, purple, there was a huge gash in the side of his forehead. His hair was dirty, his skin was dirty, his clothes were dirty. He didn’t look like Suho.  
  
“B-baekhyun?” Suho croaked.  
  
Baekhyun kept staring at the man frozen until Kris came into his vision. Baekhyun recognized his ragged expression-full with anguish. There were traces of tears on his dirty face. Baekhyun’s heart clenched.  
  
“Are you okay enough to walk?” Kris asked came to him. His voice raspy and rough, like he was just crying.  
  
“I’m fine. What happen? What happened to Suho?” He asked terrified. Kris glanced at Suho and there was that again - the anguish.  
  
“He is hurt bad. The resistance caught them. They-“ Kris took a shaky breath. “Kyungsoo, Chanyeol and Sehun are dead.”  
  
Baekhyun sucked in a sharp breath. “And the others? The-“  
  
“They are hurt badly they are in some room with Yixing.” Kris grabbed Baekhyun’s shoulders. “Get back to bed okay? You look really pale.”  
  
“Are you-Kris-“  
  
“I’m fine. I need to talk with Suho and helped the others. I’ll be with you soon.”  
  
Baekhyun looked at Kris’ eyes, seeing desperation in them, he needed time alone with Suho was what he didn’t say.  
  
“Okay.” Baekhyun whispered. Kris pressed a light kiss on the crown of his head before he walked away in Suho’s direction.  
  
Suho was staring at him.  
  
Baekhyun shuddered at how soulless his eyes looked.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
When Baekhyun woke up next morning, he found Suho was staring at him.  
  
He bolted upright and stared at the man wide-eyed. His heart racing in his chest like a hummingbird caged in his ribs.  
  
Suho smiled at him, strained, wobbly and pinched at the edge.  
  
The man looked better-as better as a man covered in bruises and sunburns could. But there were the faintest of colors in his cheeks. Faint, like a tiny speck of red in a sea of white.  
  
“Good morning.” Suho said, voice rough.  
  
“Good morning.” Baekhyun answered weakly. “Are you feeling better?”  
  
“Yes. Yixing told me not to go around but it’s so hard when there’s so much to see.” Suho answered. Baekhyun wanted to offer the man his food, his blanket, his strength, because he looked so fragile like the softest touch could break him, but Suho just stared-steady and slightly glazed at him.  
  
“Things are so different here.” Suho murmured after a long silence. “It’s like being in another planet, another universe.”  
  
Baekhyun nodded, staring at the sun rays that crept through his thin curtain. “Yeah. And the colors. I’ve never seen so many colors before.”  
  
Suho smiled again now infected with sadness so great Baekhyun’s stomach clenched. “I hope they could see it too.”  
  
Baekhyun bit his lip.  
  
“What happened?” He whispered.  
  
Suho looked up at him, not staring at Baekhyun, he wasn’t staring at anything at all just gazing blankly forlornly at nothing.  
  
“We got caught by the resistance.”  
  
Baekhyun stiffened, half expecting Suho to say that.  
  
“They held us in a small cell, tortured us to get answers out of us.” Suho sucked in a heavy breath. “Luhan, he managed to turn down the power and we escaped. We escaped into another form of torture. People were desperate in the nation. Killing, robbing, starving, sick, it was horrible. We hid in ruins, moved from one region to another, trying so hard to survive with so little food. When we woke up the next day, there were riots. Riots everywhere. They weren’t part of the resistance. People were starting to hate the resistance when they demanded them to work, unpaid, they wanted them to fight against the metropolis in exchange for a cure. We were forced to join the riots, if they found you weren’t a part of any riot, rebel movements, they would kill you. So many childrens, women-“ Suho shook his head wildly, like trying to throw away the memories from his head. “The riots were so ruthless, the resistance, the metropolis, the people, they were trying to rule the nation, so many deaths, and Sehun-“ Suho choked. “Sehun died. It was so hard.”  
  
Something thumped Baekhyun’s chest. Thump, thump, thump. He found it hard to breathe.  
  
Suho continued in a shaky voice, “There were people like us, trying desperately to stop the war at the same time to avoid it. Because there was no way to save that nation, those rebels, those resistance members. So I decided to go to the land outside the border, we found people, a lot of people actually who thought the same thing. At least there was a hope in stepping into something you don’t know. It was scary, knowing you and Kris didn’t come back too.” Suho took a deep breath. “The dessert was ruthless, a lot of people died there. It came from a kid, the plague. We didn’t know he caught the plague, we thought he was only flushed from the sun and sick from hunger. But then it started to spread fast, and people were suddenly started to bleed on the dessert. Chanyeol and Kyungsoo-“ He choked out a loud sob, “they didn’t survive.” Suho crouched in his seat, hunkered to himself, his body shaking with his anguish. Baekhyun felt it deep in his heart, the pain, the pain, the pain, he reached out and clasped Suho’s hand, Suho gripped his hand back so hard like that was the only thing anchoring him to life was Baekhyun’s hold, like the only thing that kept him from curling into himself and withered was Baekhyun’s hand.  
  
“It’s okay.” Baekhyun whispered. “You’ll be okay.”  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
“Hey.” Kris was leaning on his door. Baekhyun turned his head and looked at the man. His eyes swollen and red rimmed, his face ashen and Baekhyun could see his limbs shaking.  
  
“Hey.” He replied.  
  
Kris walked into the room and Baekhyun scooted over, giving the man space. Kris smiled at him and pecked him on the corner of his eye.  
  
“Lay with me.” Kris pulled Baekhyun to him and turned him so his back was facing the man. Strong arms enveloped him and Baekhyun placed his both of his hands on top of those hands.  
  
“You’re thinner.” Kris breathed into Baekhyun’s head.  
  
“You too. And pale.”  
  
Kris let out a shaky breath and tightened his hold. Baekhyun counted the slow quivering movement of the man’s chest.  
  
The sun was setting outside. It was so beautiful. And sad. And hopeful. It was fire orange, as intense as his hope. It was the palest tint of yellow, as subdued as his sorrow.  
  
“It’s my fault.” Kris whispered. “It’s my fault.” And Kris broke into a loud wrecking sobs shaking Baekhyun with him. Warm, warm and wretched tears drenched his neck where Kris buried his face.  
  
“It’s not.” He said. Voice firm though it was awfully wobbly.  
  
“It is. I should’ve come back. I should’ve turned my car back once we killed those resistance members. I should’ve searched for them before we went to the land outside the border.” Kris whimpered. “I should’ve got back to the nation and found them once we got here, once we found this town-I should’ve-I could have save them Baekhyun, I could have-“  
  
“Kris.”  
  
“I can’t look at Kai. I can’t look at those eyes. It haunts me. Sehun was-Sehun was his world. And Kyungsoo and Chanyeol-Suho-“  
  
Baekhyun realized he was also crying when he found it really hard to take his next breath. He silently let his tears dropped, to his lips, to his neck, to his shirt. Kris’ sobs were loud, it pierced his ears, but it pierced his heart more.  
  
“They’re not blaming you.” He tried. “Suho, he doesn’t blame you. And there’s no need to Kris, because you don’t do anything wrong. You would save them, you would,” Baekhyun said louder when Kris shook his head, “but you weren’t in any position to. You were dying. On that dessert. I was beside you, I knew. You didn’t leave them on purpose. You thought they were going to make it. You thought you weren’t going to make it. You didn’t know. We didn’t know. None of us did. That’s the thing about death, we don’t know when would it happen and it’s completely out of our control.”  
  
Baekhyun turned his body to face Kris. He cupped the man’s jaw and forcing him to look at him. Kris’ face was blotched red and tears soaking it. He looked at those eyes, eyes that filled with so much pain it made him hurt as much.  
  
“It’s not your fault.” He said leaning to press a kiss on Kris’ tears, just like what the taller man did when he cried. Baekhyun pressed kiss to both of his eyelids when those eyes fluttered shut. And he stopped, hovered an inch above those lips. “It’s not your fault. They are your friends, they’re not going to blame you. Be strong for them Kris, they need you.”  
  
Kris kissed him and Baekhyun kissed him back, opening his mouth, opening his chest, opening his heart.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
The look of Kai’s eyes haunted him. They were bleak. Lifeless. And the man was always locking himself in his room, always avoiding any form of interaction. When Jongdae told them they could pick any house in the town, Kai left right away, choosing the farthest house from them.  
  
Baekhyun understood his pain. Baekhyun looked at Kris. He understood.  
  
Tao tried to make amends with him. The man was always trying to help him, thrown smiles at him, offering him food, drink and Baekhyun would always declined him with a stiff smile. He didn’t hate the man, it just simply so awkward whenever he looked at his eyes and didn’t see hatred reflected back at him. So he resulted to avoid the man as much as he could.  
  
Luhan was nice to him. In fact a lot of people were nice to him. People would clasp his back, held his shoulder, smiled kindly at him, murmuring their gratefulness, and it felt weird. It felt weird to be treated like some sort of savior for them, and Baekhyun more often than not tried to mask his tense face with a strained smile.  
  
He found Kris sat on the steps to the yard talking with Suho. When Baekhyun approached them, they turned their heads and Suho smiled at him. Kris looked at him with a wide boyish grin and Baekhyun’s heart clenched.  
  
“Well I have to see Yixing, he wants to talk to me about medical stuff.” He got up, dusted his pants, clapped Baekhyun’s shoulder, and walked inside the house.  
  
“I asked Jongdae’s father if we could have the bird painting in our house.” Kris said to him, grinning boyishly. Baekhyun chuckled and moved to sit beside Kris.  
  
“Does he let you?”  
  
“I don’t know. But you love it and he loves you I’m sure he will give it.” Kris rolled his eyes and Baekhyun swatted him.  
  
Baekhyun leaned his head onto Kris shoulder watching the oddly clear blue sky above them.  
  
“It’s so beautiful and clear.” Baekhyun murmured. “I hope we can see real bird flying.”  
  
“We will.” Kris said pulling him closer. “There is town full of big houses in the land outside the border, of course there will be birds flying.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Yeah. I’m not surprise if we find fish as big as human popping out of the lake.”  
  
“Fish as big as human?” Baekhyun scoffed.  
  
“It could be true! One thing that I learned from this is that this universe is so big, it’s so powerful, and if it could give a safe place for people from a doomed nation, why couldn’t it give us a tiny speck of hope for possibilities?”  
  
“What are your hopes?”  
  
Kris shrugged. “I don’t know. For now I just want to live, really.”  
  
Baekhyun swallowed the humid air surrounding them and let them filled his lungs to the brim. “Me too.” He breathed out. “That, and birds.”  
  
Kris chuckled and pulled his face for a kiss.  
  
There was no tranquil peace.  
  
The war, the riots, the hunger, the plague they didn’t stop. Their nation was still doomed.  
  
But there was a hope.  
  
There was a hope with every step people took to the land outside the border.  
  
There was a hope with every pain he shed to create cures.  
  
There was a hope with the houses that slowly filled with humans and had them called it their home.  
  
There was a hope in Kris’ wide smile.  
  
There was a hope to live, to really live, and Baekhyun thought that was enough for him.  


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Title is taken from Ellie Goulding – Dead In The Water
> 
> This fic is the result of years and years missing krisbaek :"(  
> This fic is also posted at my lj exollegiance 


End file.
